Hasta La Vista And Thanks For All The Fish
by Death By Tea Cozy
Summary: The Earth is sceduled for Demolition and all the dolphins have mysteriously disappeared. What are the Penguins to do? Knowledge of both fandoms is recommended.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is just a teaser. I'm going to continue the story once I'm done with a piece of original fiction which I'm finishing up on right now. So it might look like I'm abandoning this story, but I'm actually working on it and will post new chapters once I get the time to write on this story.**

A sunny Saturday: families taking a break at the park, teenagers skating where it was prohibit, old ladies feeding the pigeons, children spilling popcorns like a breadcrumb trail, zoo animals taking a nap in the shade to avoid the merciless sun, children laughing, screeching and just being plain annoying. Yes, Central Park had it all. And at central Park Zoo…

A lion was standing still as a statue in the middle of the exhibit. Not anything suspicious about that, except for the overshadowing fact that there had not been a lion at Central Park Zoo for years. As a few exited children pointed their chubby candy-floss coated fingers at the suspicious display, a small black face peered out from the mouth of said lion. It did a 180 before retreating as quickly as it had appeared. "Alice not in sight, sir," a hushed voice from inside the lion sounded. "Excellent Kowalski. Now try to move this thing. I wanna see action!" another voice answered. The right front paw of the lion moved up in the air, up, up, up and kept going until the limb pointed right up at the sky. Then the whole structure started shaking and a siren sounded from inside the creature. "Kowalski! Tell me _what is_ happening?" an angered voice demanded from inside the lion. The lion clumsily and with many unnatural twists of its limbs got back on all fours again. "Nothing sir, just a minor flaw. Now, uhm, let's make it roar!" the other voice quickly answered with a hint of tension before the whole structure exploded and revealed itself to be a robot. Within an instant a curtain, covered with a childish illustration supposedly meant to resemble the exhibit, was thrown down between to lampposts and blocked the view of the smoking display from a starring crowd of children. A penguin jumped down behind the curtain from one of the lampposts , cheering in a croaking voice: "Kaboom! Kaboom!". Another penguin joined the first and noted with disappointment, "Aww… it's completely destroyed. Even the tail! I spent hours on making that toilet brush look like a tail…". From the smoking remains of the robotic lion a voice announced, "Operation Leo O-robomatic is officially cancelled. Move on to operation Snowcone- snowcone IV!". The two penguins smiled brightly as they stood straight and answered with each their version of an "aye-aye Sir!".

All this was watched from space by a sinister figure poised in a specially built chair meant to be as intimidating as possible. "What is the time? Is it time for a glass of cricket juice?" the figure asked, turning to a clerk standing beside him. "No, your Vogonness, it is time to demolish Earth," the clerk answered, having a look at his papers and finding the necessary forms so his superior could sign them.

All _this_ was watched from even further into space by a sinister figure poised in a specially built chair meant to be even more intimidating than the one belonging to the first sinister figure. The sinister figure turned away from one set of monitors but kept looking at the feed from the tip top secret cameras planted around the zoo, one red eye glowing in the dramatically gloomy surveillance room. Dr. Blowhole, the devious dolphin mastermind laughed out loud, a typical dolphin laugh laced with _evil_. "E-E-Excellent!" his voice rung out into the room, out into space, down to Earth and somehow, without explanation, reached the sensitive ears of the ever paranoid leader of the penguins: Skipper. The Penguin froze, blinking up at the blue sky with his pearly little eyes. "Blowhole!" he hissed under his breath, already looking forward to kicking that presumptuous mammal's tail again.

**A/N: Please R&R, I'd like to know if anyone is interested in a crossover like this.**


	2. Chapter 2

Skipper slipped down into HQ, counting on having the place at high alert in a matter of 40 seconds, with the subtlety of a ninja, unnoticed by no none. Not that there was any need for subtlety. The other penguins were watching "_Moose Gone Wild – Suburbia Edition_" while eating their newly acquired snowcones and cheering the moose on. Skipper sneaked up on them, at first intending to give them a lesson on what happened when they dared to let their guard down for even a moment. Then he actually let his mind focus on the TV-show for a moment and instantly the penguin was sold. How could he have lived a happy life without watching "_Moose Gone Wild_"? It had drunk moose, simple barbecues starting forest fires, humans running around and screaming in terror at their involuntary confrontation with nature and even a bear eating a mailbox. It was great, just phenomenal! All four penguins were now sat around the TV, some of them still eating snowcones, but for some of them the TV-show was not as alluring as other forms of entertainment. Scooting away from the TV and the mesmerized penguins Private made his way to the table where he pulled out a book and crayons. With a smile on his face that could turn even the most grumpy shark's vision pink for four hours he flipped open the book. He started colouring in the pictures of lunacorns, cute rabbits and rainbows, completely oblivious to what was happening relatively not so far away in space. Or indeed in the next habitat.

At the lemurs it was officially "Mixed Music Hour" and Maurice was currently trying to find something on the radio. Having just passed a station playing Punk Rock Maurice stopped as the tones of 90'es Techno fought their way out of the speakers. However, the lemur king barely got to shake his booty to the left before a special newsflash interrupted the much appreciated music. "We have breaking news that the world's population of dolphins is gone. It would seem that every single dolphin on planet Earth has mysteriously disappeared without a trace. We have as of yet not been presented with an explanation. We, here at –" the voice in the radio managed to announce before Julian had decided to find another channel. Maurice looked at him accusingly and clearly worried, his ears hanging low and arms crossed. Mort hopped around, dancing to the generic pop as if his life depended on it. "Uhm, your Majesty, don't you think –" Maurice tried to say but Julian just turned up the volume to drown his advisor's words out. Maurice's palm hit his face and he rubbed his eyes in frustration. He decided to give up on talking to his king and made his way to the penguins' habitat alone. If the dolphins had disappeared, then something might be about to happen. Probably something along the lines of the zoo blowing up, or Manhattan being flooded, if last year's encounter with Dr. Blowhole was anything to go by. It had not escaped Maurice that something involving dolphins would probably involve Dr. Blowhole and the penguins too. Better get this over with and then flee to safety until it had blown over.

Maurice entered the penguins' HQ with a generic "Hello" and was immediately held at lasergun point by Rico while it sounded like a baby seal was being tortured with a barbecue and a tennis racket just a few feet away. The aye-aye could only watch the spectacle unfolding before him. Private was strapped down into a sinister looking chair with bundles of wires connecting him to one of Kowalski's innumerable inventions. Kowalski was pulling levers on a console connected to something which looked like it had once been a birdcage and a security camera, all held together by duct tape and what looked like spray-on cheese. Now the innocent components had taken on the form of a menacing monster with blue sparks jumping between the bars of the birdcage. Skipper was leaning in over Private, starring at him with bloodshot eyes, and flinging out one question/accusation for every lever Kowalski pulled."What've you done to the Private? Who sent you? Why won't you answer my questions?" he kept firing at the fixated penguin. Private just blinked at him in puzzlement, meekly trying to explain that he had no idea what Skipper was talking about. Every pull of a lever made him tense up and let out squeaks and sounds reminiscent of a baby seal. Once he spotted Maurice he however plastered a smile on his face for a moment. "Hello Maurice" he greeted, seemingly not all that worried about the brutal questioning and the baby-seal-squeak-inducing-invention which he was strapped into.

"Uhm Hello... hey, do you think you could listen for just a moment? I've got something to tell you that might be important..." Maurice tried, since he really did not want to spend more time in the company of the penguins than what was absolutely necessary. Kowalski reacted immediately by pulling down a curtain from the emergency curtain compartment in the roof. Now the whole scenery was covered from view. The sound, however, was still ever present. More, even louder shrieks sounded from behind the curtain as Skipper peered out to look at Maurice. "Can't this wait, mammal? We've got important penguin business to attend to here," he said without giving Maurice a chance to answer before he returned to the questioning. Rico lowered the lasergun and sneaked over to have a peek behind the curtain once the shrieks started sounding more like a penguin chick being crushed by a walrus. Maurice seriously debated whether to stay and listen to the strange display or simply leave and forget everything about it. Just as he was about to make his way up the ladder Kowalski announced, "All clear, the stats all match and all tests were positive. This _is_ actually Private. Only our own private could display such a great amount of adorable pansyness subjected to my Hyper Penguin Stimuli Browser". In a flash the whole scenery disappeared, the Hyper Penguin Stimuli Browser was stowed away and Private was now sitting at the table. Skipper had a flipper on Private's shoulder, shaking him a little rougher than was comfortable and stating, "Almighty Emu, you gave us all a fright, soldier".

Maurice was by now about to either walk away and try to forget what had happened, or explode in the face of the next penguin who ignored him. Luckily Rico had found his presence interesting and had spit up the lasergun once again, grunting questioningly at his commanding officer. Skipper finally seemed to register that Maurice had something to tell them. "Maurice. You have 8 seconds. GO!" he announced, making the aye-aye reconsider whether serving under skipper would be less nerve wrecking than serving under Julian was. "So, you see, I heard on the radio –" he began and was cut off by Skipper, "Not fast enough and therefore not important enough. Now leave our HQ we –" this time Maurice was the one to interrupt. He had simply had enough and did not care to waste any more time on the stubborn, and most importantly, psychotic penguins. "All the dolphins have disappeared!" he yelled and then promptly left the penguins to do... whatever they would be doing. Better not worry too much about it.

Left in the underground lair were four penguins with their beaks wide open in shock and horror. This only lasted until Rico suddenly lurched for the TV, pointing a flipper insistently at the screen. "Rico, this is no time to be watching TV. Spending time on simple entertainment is highly illogical in a situation such as this," Kowalski lectured him. Rico kept grunting insistently and slamming his head into the screen. Then Private finally thought to see for himself what TV-show had Rico so riled up. It only took him a moment to process what he was seeing. "Uh, guys..." he stammered, pointing a shaking flipper at the TV. The other two penguins joined him and Rico in watching the breaking news report. "I am Chuck Charles, here with breaking news! It would appear that a fleet of alien spaceships have appeared in not only American air space, but all over the world".

**A/N: This chapter was a bit tame, I know. The next one will have more action. This story focuses on the penguins but it WILL introduce characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy eventually and will primarily follow the movie with a few elements from the books added. You'll see why that is as the story progresses.**

**This Chapter came out fast, but the next one won't be as quick. I've still got another story as my top priority for the next few weeks. **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I might have been a bit unclear in the last author's note: The story will start to move into an AU later, but right now the plot has to follow that of the movie for a bit longer. (However, traces of AU can already be found by those who know their Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy down to the letter). This chapter is the first to sport notes in the style of the book, so don't get confused when there's a number in a parenthesis.**

"NOOOO! Blast you, Moose Gone Wild!" Skipper howled in dismay. The three other penguins stared at him quizzically for a few moments until they remembered what was happening above them. Private crept into a corner with a tea cosy over his head, shivering like a baby rabbit. Kowalski tapped Skipper – who was hammering a flipper into the very floor he lay on, still quite agitated and cursing under his breath – on the shoulder. "Would you care to elaborate?" he asked, already thinking up scenarios for the next 24 hours and regretting that he had yet to invent fully functioning lightsabers. Skipper got up from the floor immediately, wanting the world to forget that he had ever been there. Rico was following the news report, head glued to the TV-screen."Certainly," Skipper said in a now almost calm voice, "It is obvious that the dolphins are more devious than we thought. They must have known of this invasion in advance and in order to ensure that they were the only ones to escape the ravaging alien threat they staged and produced 'Moose Gone Wild'." The paranoid penguin's eyes narrowed and his whole demeanour turned tough. He was now a bitter warrior who had been tricked by a less honourable foe. All that was missing was a bloodied headband and bloodshot eyes. Kowalski tapped his beak with a pencil, afraid to rob his commanding officer of his dignity; but science must prevail. "Uhm, Skipper, I don't think your assumption is 100% correct," he started out, the other penguin's head snapping round to face him dead on. Rico was still preoccupied by the television and the pictures of nuclear missiles launched at the invaders. His constant cheering of "Kaboom! Kaboom" only made Private pull himself further into the corner, nursing the tea cosy with orange flowers as if it was a nuclear bunker. Kowalski ignored all distractions and continued, "All of my calculations point towards 'Moose Gone Wild' simply being an absolutely brilliant show thought up by numb human brains and rebroadcasted around the clock in order to entertain the TV-addicted masses of the American middle and working-class population. I suggest that we make watching it a permanent tradition of Thursday mornings." Skipper nodded, sending a glance in Rico's direction. "Motion passed. Now let's move on, men!" Skipper said, sudden realisation hitting him after finishing the first sentence.

Nobody but Kowalski reacted. Rico only had eyes for the TV and Private had all but disappeared beneath his tea cosy, which was a feat since it would normally only fit his personal penguins sized tea pot, while trying to drown out the sound of the TV. "Men!" Skipper tried again while Kowalski started poking Private with his pencil. "MEN! We've got an alien invasion on our hands! Assemble! NOW!" he yelled again, this time capturing the attention of all the penguins. Private tentatively walked to the table, hugging the tea cosy to him like a preschooler would hug a wounded puppy. Rico dragged himself away from the TV, tongue hanging out and an empty look in his eyes. "Good," Skipper said and looked to their resident genius, "Kowalski, options."

Kowalski pulled out his options board from nowhere (1) and started to explain, "Alien ships have arrived, apparently surrounding Earth, even though I doubt that they could make the whole planet flee from them..."

Private let out a girlish scream, "Aaalieeens!" and threw up his flippers, running around the table in a panic. Skipper barked a quick command at Rico, "Rico, neutralise the lunatic."

Rico barfed up a Ping-Pong bat and stuck it out just in front of the running penguin, letting his momentum do the rest of the job. "Good, now let's get on with it. Kowalski, op –" Skipper started out, stopping dead in his tracks when Private suddenly woke up and started screaming like a little girl yet again. "Rico!" Skipper yelled, his tone of voice telling the other penguin to do _exactly_ what he wanted to. Rico rubbed his flippers together, "Ohboij!" he croaked out before performing the Left Hook Maltesers Brain Shaker on his hysterical fellow soldier. The small penguins immediately went into a deep trance, all traces of panic gone.

"Right," Skipper said, annoyance traceable in his voice, "We've got to find out why the British are so hysterical about alien invasions one of these days. Kowalski... options..."

Rico announced his strategy before Kowalski could even open his beak. He spit up a loaded rocket launcher, only to have Skipper wave it away. "Aahw..." Rico sighed and sat down at the table, mourning the loss of a great 'Kaboom!' opportunity.

Kowalski cleared his voice, putting on a neutral face. Science was always calm in the face of alien invasions. "I have determined that the current events can lead to one of two scenarios," he announced, "Scenario one involves the aliens contacting us to extend their hand in friendship and inviting us to join the space faring races". Private partially broke out of his trance, smiling a relieved smile. Kowalski continued, "Only to stab us in the back and take over Earth," Private's smile faltered. He was completely ignored by the still calm and collected genius penguin who went on with his second scenario, "Scenario two involves the aliens blowing us up right away. That's what I've got."

Rico let out a sad "Kaboom", no doubt having mixed emotions about what was to come. "Even I have to admit that it doesn't look good, Skipper..." Kowalski said, returning his options board to nowhere with a sad shake of his head. Their leader, however, had a whole different view on things. "No!" he yelled and flung himself up atop of the table, "We're penguins! We won't surrender to anyone!"

Kowalski pulled forth his abacus from nowhere (2) and after a single calculation promptly corrected Skipper, "According to my calculations we do not have to surrender to anyone. We will all die regardless... horrible, horrible death, not on par with the fate of Manfredi and Johnson but still not desirable, if scenario one becomes reality and –" He was cut short by Skipper, who had that special 'I've-just-got-a-crazy-idea-which-will-turn-out-to –be-our-only-salvation-look' in his eyes. "Negatory! We'll get the aliens before they get us!" he announced, taking a patriotic stand atop the table with one flipper raised before him, pointing at the wall (All that mattered was of course the intention, so his men ignored how stupid it looked).

"Kowalski, how far has your teleportation system come along?" Skipper asked, pointing his flipper at Kowalski with such vigour that the shockwave of his movement made the other penguin sway. "I need another two months," he announced, aware of the very real risk of Skipper asking him to complete his project in an absurdly short amount of time. Skipper did not disappoint him. "You've got 30 minutes," he announced, taking a heroic no-nonsense stance, still atop the table."But..." Kowalski protested, outraged by how little time he had been allotted. "No BUTS!" Skipper said, stepping down from the table while still managing to appear intimidating, "You finish that teleporter pronto, or the Earth is DOOOMED!"

His emphasis on the last word made Private shudder and let out a slight yelp which he tried to convince himself did not sound the least bit girly. The penguin super genius finally realised the severity of the situation and how much trust his commanding officer was placing in him by demanding this. His sense of loyalty finally overcame his sense of logical rationality and he saluted skipper, "Aye aye sir!"

"A-donyeh?" Rico asked, for about the 50th time in 26 minutes. Kowalski chose to ignore him for the sake of his own sanity and instead kept working on the teleporter, throwing about components in such a flurry that a twister might as well have paid a visit to their hideout. The other penguin was of course looking forward to doing _anything_ – or at the very least something– about the alien threat; preferably something that involved explosives in copious amounts. Skipper was nursing a cup of coffee, so tense and seemingly preoccupied with his still unannounced master plan that he was painfully unaware of the screwdriver jutting out of his cup. Private had been given a cup of tea to calm the nerves, as it was clear to everyone that the Brit did not like alien invasions at all. He anxiously followed the screwdriver sliding from one side of Skipper's cup to the other, only waiting for the moment when Skipper would prick his beak on it or simply swallow it whole. Not that Rico would not know how to get it out of their commanding officer again, mind you.

The whole scene was thoroughly and irreversibly disrupted by Kowalski's deafening cry of triumph as he proudly announced, "I've done it!" The rest of the team all lit up at once. "I've built a functioning lightsaber! Oh mama, take that Dr. Koala Von Pumuwich!" he continued, earning a disproving bloodshot stare from Skipper. The suddenly unpopular genius quickly added, "and I've of course also finished the teleporter..."

"Good job soldier, we can progress with my plan," Skipper said, hitting a flipper against the table in victorious delight. Private forgot all about his tea and spilled it on Skippers flipper as he asked, "so, what is your plan?"

Their leader waved them all over to the table, lowered his head and pushed the others as close to his beak as possible and finally started to whisper his plan to them.

Meanwhile, a red faced office clerk was racing through corridor after corridor of the Vogon mothership. He finally reached the bridge, launching himself at his only half as red faced boss. "Here! I've found the final form!" he announced while holding out the set of indigo papers that he had been searching for almost an hour. He averted his eyes from the grumpy Vogon while he signed the dotted line and filed the papers with the rest of the day's paper work. "Finally," he barked, addressing the whole fleet on his video screen, "Annihilate Earth!"

In the lower bowels of said Vogon mothership four members of the Earth fauna known as penguins materialised. The cutest of the four cheered, "Yay, we did it!" while sending a hopeful glance at the pudgy one.

Before Skipper, who only appeared pudgy in order to confuse his enemies, could show any reaction to the dangerous optimism of Private, who was cute because the universe demanded that someone on the team balanced out Rico's psychosis, Kowalski gasped in painful realisation. "What?" Skipper demanded to know. The most senior avian genius on earth (technically speaking, as he was in space at the moment), covered his face with one flipper and said, muffled behind the flipper, yet clear enough for the other three penguins to understand the ramifications, "My teleporter appears to have a slight design flaw." The empty metal corridor was silent for a moment. Then he continued, "We were sent here successfully... but the teleporter stayed behind... on Earth."

(1) Note: Nowhere is an actual place. It is ruled by the popular and perfect Nobody and the council of No Ones. It can be found right outside of Nothing (just follow the blue signs and turn left before the fluorescent dragon cadaver). It is however a very dull place for vacations as the only brand of beer available is No More.

(2) Nowhere is in reality quite a crowded place and home to a very popular funk country festival every spring.

**A/N: Please R&R. I don't know when the next chapter will be up since I've never had as little spare time as I do now. I'll try to make it quick.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3

Panic is a strange thing. Some can recover from it by themselves, others need a few slaps in the face with a cactus (1). Rico was admirably calm compared to the other penguins and so dealt with the panic accordingly in a fashion that would have earned him more honours than the avian legend 'Ostrich George'.

As all four penguins had more or less calmed down after three of them had absolutely lost it, Kowalski made following conclusions: firstly, he had made one of those big mistakes most scientists only make once in their career, likely right at the end of it before they are blown to smithereens. Secondly, it felt like he had been slapped with a cactus. And thirdly, they were stranded on a space ship filled with hostile aliens.

He whispered this into Skipper's ear and got a berating stare right back. "Men, we've got to complete our mission, at any cost," their leader said, marching back and forth in front of his three subordinates' beaks. "If we do not succeed," he continued, his voice a little strained, "then we will die trying to save the Earth, the home of the brave and true, the most bold of all races... and humanity too.(2) Perhaps new heroes will be inspired by our effort and do what we could not." The small penguin emanated patriotism as he continued, starring into the distance dramatically. "If worse comes to worst, then remember; that although our enemy may seem great and undefeatable, we are penguins. _WE _are _penguins_!"

Silence rung in the corridor for a moment after Skipper's last words. Then the remaining three penguins started clapping, Private mumbled a touched "too true" and Kowalski cheered, "It's an honour serving with you, sir." Rico spit up the flag of the Central Park Zoo and waved it enthusiastically only to suddenly stop mid motion and exchange the flag for a stick of dynamite. All penguins froze, listening. The sound of footsteps was resonating down the corridor.

The four penguins disappeared out of sight in less than a second. They _were_ like windy ghosts, or a ghostly wind, after all.

The first thing that came into view was two humans: one a rather pitiful pale man, dressed in a green dressing gown and carrying a towel that would never in a month of traffic free Thursday afternoons match his dressing gown. The other a black man wearing a hip white coat, a towel wrapped around his neck and a brown satchel slung over a shoulder. However, what caught the attention of the penguins half a moment later, was the big and immensely ugly things waddling down the hallway right behind the humans.

_Ugly _was a nice way of putting it. Reminiscent of something that had been left behind after all the 2nd graders fled the changing rooms Friday afternoon and then forgotten by all, left alone to swell and grow in a pool of liquefied liquorice, crystal Pepsi and sickly green nail polish, was a more accurate description. There was no doubt that these two monstrosities in their displeasingly, revoltingly, revealingly tight black suits, which thankfully covered a great part of their revoltingly green bodies, were minions of the big bad alien menace threatening Earth. The two humans, on the other hand, did not seem to fit the picture. They were both silent, while the two aliens chanted something in a scratching alien tongue over and over as they led the humans down the corridor. Private stopped pretending to be part of the ceiling for just a moment and whispered to Skipper, "How come there are people on the alien ship? I mean they can't possibly be spies, right?" Skipper was about to answer, having allowed himself to carefully study the faces of the humans for half a moment longer than intended, but Kowalski stopped pretending to be a light switch long enough to share his theory of the state of affairs, "They must be species. The aliens have somehow found a way to disguise themselves as humans by stealing the skin of human world leaders in order to obtain intel directly from the political centres of Earth – or, even more terrifying, they may have stolen the skin of top scientists and stilted all groundbreaking projects and sabotaged research. Who knows how long they might have been hiding amongst us! They might have infiltrated the zoo, stolen the skin of someone we know..."

All eyes turned to Rico for a moment. Then all four penguins realised how far out Kowalski was. Especially Skipper, who found that his own paranoid fantasies were much more manageable than Kowalski's. A theory had drifted to the surface of his magnificent, paranoid mind. As the responsible leader he was, Skipper immediately initiated his subordinates in his theory, "They must be traitors – unscrupulous, conscienceless, heartless humans who have sold out the Earth to these alien monstrosities. AND... they _must _be in league with Doctor Blowhole. How else can it be that all the dolphins conveniently disappear _just_ before the aliens invade? It is quite clear that these humans must be in league with the dolphins. I mean, who would wear a bathrobe and carry around towels if it was not for their frequent meetings with wet, slimy, devious aquatic mammals?"

This all seemed _quite reasonable_ to the three other penguins, and so they obediently followed Skipper's silent order to remain hidden while stalking the humans, wait for the right moment to grab them and then interrogate them. Rico gleefully thought of how this made them seem like ninjas (and ninjas were of course the third coolest thing in existence, according to him) and how much he looked forward to using his baseball bat, which he had missed his chance to hit Private and Kowalski with a few minutes ago. Getting a chance to kick blowhole's tail once again was also something Rico looked forward to. Good thing he had brought plenty of dynamite.

The two humans were led into a small, bare room which the penguins did not get a chance to follow them into. The door was shut right before their beaks by the two oblivious aliens. Apparently these aliens did not believe in looking where they stepped. Skipper made sure to remember that little fact, in case they had to take down the alien soldiers one by one in hand to flipper combat. One of the aliens pressed a switch outside the door and through the door's porthole the penguins could see how a red light started to flash, accompanied by something that sounded remarkably like a siren. It was amazing how much it sounded like a siren determined to warn them of something. This siren did its job well, no one would ever doubt that it was indeed a siren. If sirens had in any way decided to become religious over night, then this siren had to be their god and prophet in one. It was absolutely astonishing how much it sounded like the most sublime sirenlike form of a siren. It was _the _siren. The one and only. The first and last. And it suddenly became silent when a set of hatches opened and let the two humans drop through them. Out into space.

The three other penguins looked at Skipper as if to say, "Were you expecting that?" Skipper sent Kowalski a look that almost shouted, "_You_ are supposed to come up with the options." Rico sent the wall a look that said, "You look rather solid. I'd like to hit you with a sledgehammer and see how many dents I can make in you. How about it?"

Skipper stayed put, starring at the empty room for 0.8749 seconds, which happened to be the exact same amount of time it takes for a cactus on Florence Alpha to mature, bloom and wither away. The only reason why the cacti of Florence Alpha have not yet died out is that the great god Blart loves them with a passion and tends to turn his enemies' brains into cactus seeds whenever he goes on an angry rampage; which is about as often as a spoiled 5-year-old subjected to blind tasting Frogstarian broccoli has a hissy fit.

"We need to follow them. They can lead us to Dr. Blowhole," skipper stated, ignoring any doubtful expressions on the faces of his men. "Kowalski, options!" he then order, impatient already. The avian genius pulled out his optionsboard from Nowhere, where it had until now enjoyed the status of local oracle and orange juice salesman, and started scribbling away.

"I..." Kowalski said, drawing out the tension as he stared down at his optionsboard in concentration, "have a plan." The others looked at him in anticipation. The ugly greyish brown colour of the otherwise empty hallway seemed to creep up on them during the silence so their very own genius quickly felt compelled to continued, "We steal a shuttle from the alien vessel we are currently on and follow the humans. They will undoubtedly be picked up by another ship and brought to the lair of our dolphin foes."

"Very good," remarked Skipper with sarcasm. "But how do you suppose that we follow them through the big, empty space that is space?" he asked, still with annoyed sarcasm. Then he added, thoughtfully, "... and by the way, isn't that thing supposed to be endless?" Kowalski slapped the optionsboard against his head several times before he calmly said to Skipper in a strained voice, "One might think that if you had not understood anything about the universe. Yes, one might think that..." he sounded anything but happy with giving Skipper that answer. But even he could grasp the seriousness of the situation and the swiftness with which their current problems must be dealt. He took a deep breath and tried again, kind of triumphantly as he answered Skipper's first question, "I have planted a tracktruinator in one of the humans' pockets." The other penguins were one big question mark. Then private asked, "What's a... trukukinator?" and Skipper asked, "And when did you have the time to do that?" Kowalski looked as smug as he could without loosing his cool. "I did it while you were ehm, _explaining_ the true nature of things to us a few minutes ago," Kowalski answered, "Aaand, my tracktruinator is a tracking device."

20 minutes later 15 alien guards were in a temporarily horizontal state and the penguins had made their way to a shipping bay containing four ugly yellow shuttles. The four of them had opted to stay hidden instead of disguised. None of them could force themselves to remove one of the horrible black uniforms from the ugly aliens. Hidden in a trashcan that looked like it had never been used (really, who places a trashcan in such a nearly deserted shuttle bay?) the birds were devising a plan. Or, rather, Skipper was ordering the others around. "We need a distraction," he stated. The next moment he kicked Private out of the trashcan with the words, "You're it, Private."

The little penguin landed on his tail and toppled over, lying on his stomach. He lay there for a few seconds or so, trying to grasp the situation and then to follow orders. When he found that he had no idea of how to be a distraction to nasty alien invaders (3), he felt compelled to at least try out his routine from the zoo. Maybe aliens were not so different from humans when it came to distractions?

_Waddle, waddle, skip, spin, blink. Waddle, waddle, skip, flip..._

Private worked his 'cute and cuddly' routine, trying to attract the attention of all twelve or so guards stationed in the bay. Amazingly, it worked like a charm. The aliens crowded around him, some waddling very much like the penguin as they made their way to the show. All were completely silent as they watched the penguin trying to be adequately adorable (4). Behind their backs three penguins slid across the floor to one of the shuttles.

Private's distraction lasted for as long as it took for the other penguins to get aboard a shuttle and for Private to locate the button that would open the shuttle bay's gate. In record time the four Earth birds were safely inside the stolen shuttle, drifting through space. Skipper cheered in triumph, giving Private an approving nudge. "Now, men, we find the lousy human traitors," he announced. "We will follow my thirst for justice, tracking them across the galaxy if we have to!" their leader yelled with passion. From his right Kowalski discreetly added, "_and_ my tracktruinator." No one heard him.

(1) Said cactus had been produced by Rico, who for reasons unknown had swallowed it, forgotten about it, and then confused it with a baseball bat as he pulled it out and smacked Kowalski and Private with it at once, while Skipper was still recovering from an assault by screwdriver. Said cactus, a rather young and politically active plant, had since written a complaint to the Council of Biased Snarking Fauna. This in turn lead to a political movement for the promotion of plant rights and managed to unite the supporters of plant rights and the fighters for pastry freedom in the strongest political union (the Floral And Pastry Union For Equality And Liberty) seen since the blind Malpoupou people of Galamor V made a modelling contract with the great fashion house Polyester, Styrofoam & Co of Melius Minor.

(2) At the time of the Earth's destruction 90% of the population was panicking. The remaining 10% were either too preoccupied with watching a news broadcast containing clips from a video depicting an alleged real life sighting of Santa Clause, or thought that the whole spaceships in the sky and ominous voice sounding from above was just a bad joke. No need to say that the last 10% ended up being quite disappointed, but luckily for them this only lasted for 0.04 nanoseconds before they were all disintegrated and relived of all disappointment and physical existence.

(3) Private's granny had always warned him about aliens and told him that they were a nasty bunch. Her dislike for aliens had been so heartfelt that she started several intimidation campaigns in both England and Wales. In the end her scaremongering had paid off in that it was decided to pass a law which forced all citizens to dislike visitors from other worlds. Granny had been quite pleased with this, as she fondly made sure to repeat every time her grandson came over for crackers, tea and jam covered bricks. (No one ever said that she was a sane penguin, only a stubborn, xenophobic old one).

(4) By a curious universally subexistential intentional coincidence, the routine of the central Park Zoo Penguins was completely identical to a sentence in the dancing Larvaroaches of Viltvodle VI's language. Private's movements actually communicated the following: "we invite to roast chicken on a blanket of your wives' blood. Please bring you own Oufel tubes." Unfortunately, for the Vogons, none of the guards present knew of the dancing Larvaroaches of Viltvodle VI. Fortunately, for Private, the guards were all fascinated by this cute and cuddly creature which had managed to stay alive in a four miles radius of a Vogon, and so did not care.

**A/N: please R&R. I know the chapters never have the same length, but that's just how the story wants to be, sorry.**

**And by the way, I'm open to any suggestions if any readers have some ideas for the story. I've already got the whole plot planned out, but there is some room for more ideas if anyone comes up with something absolutely brilliant.**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4

**A/N: I know it's been a long time, but I've been busy and ill. Just before writing this Author's Note I literally fell off my chair, dizzy and in pain. But I bloody well want to write this story and that's what I'm gonna do. ****Fun fact: this story is actually supposed to be more or less in canon regarding "The Penguins of Madagascar". During the course of writing this story new episodes of the show stole no less than three (no, strike that, **_**four) **_**plot points that I was planning on using. Oh, well, that just forces me to be more creative. I hope the next chapter will be out faster. I can only hope.**

Plans, as far as they existed, were not being followed as closely as some penguins present would have liked. Especially the part about following the two traitors, be it to the other side of the galaxy, was not going well. It was not going at all, for a matter of fact. For all their enthusiasm, optimism and sneakiness the penguins had forgotten to take two things into consideration: did any of them know how to fly an alien spaceship? And, given their current position and most importantly, what did they do if the answer to the first was no?

At first Kowalski had sat down in the pilot seat with a hopeful expression plastered to his face. Rico had tried to press a few buttons and had been smacked by Skipper every time, just to ensure that he did not accidentally turn off the gravity or drain the oxygen from the shuttle. Kowalski's hopeful expression died a slow excruciating but unnervingly silent death as he looked around the cockpit again and again and again without knowing what exactly he was supposed to do. In a sudden outburst he announced, "I don't know how to fly this thing!" Rico eagerly jumped up on a console, ready to press a big menacing red button. Skipper gave him a smack and then another one, just to be on the safe side. Private strangely enough started rummaging through a cupboard. Before anyone could ask him what he was doing he pulled out a sickly green book. "Look, I found the manual!" he said in his cheerily extra evident English accent. Kowalski received the book from him with some irritation showing on his face. Somehow he felt very insulted that he himself had not thought of reading the manual before attempting to figure out the controls of the ship. He suppressed the need to whine about it and instead opened the manual. And remembered that he could not read. In a fit of powerlessness, helplessness and feebleness mixed with at least four other -ness'es as well as plain insulted pride, he flung the manual right back down into Private's face. The little penguin plumped to the ground wordlessly, completely out.

"What the heck was that?" Skipper demanded to know. Kowalski rested his head on his flipper, feeling even more terrible about himself than before. "I'm sorry Skipper, but the frustration just became too much for me..." he answered, on the verge of throwing a fit. Then he threw a fit. "I'm a failure as a scientist as long as I can't read! And I won't be able to get us anywhere..." Kowalski was openly whining now. Private got up from the floor, a bit dizzy and unable to decipher why the world was kind of pink. He cut off the other penguin before he could wallow in more self pity, "That's all right, Kowalski. I'll read the manual to you." The other three penguins snapped their heads around, starring at him, so amazed by this simple statement that none of them could move a muscle. Then the world exploded in one collective yell, "YOU CAN READ?"

Private was unfazed by the sudden outburst. " 'Course I can. All penguins in British zoos are taught how to read,"(1) he said, as innocent as ever. Three penguins had their beaks hanging open, although Rico had simply blown a fuse in his brain and therefore had no control of his face at the moment, while Private still seemed as oblivious as you could expect of the naive British penguin. "YOU," Skipper said in a slow and clear voice, "CAN READ?"

Rico had managed to reroute his brain and croaked out an "A-ho?"

"Yes, of course I can," Private answered. Silence fell until it was shattered by Kowalski banging his head into the console with a loud "_Ko-Lank_!" (2)

Blissfully oblivious Private opened the manual and Skipper automatically kicked Rico when he tried to reach the big menacing red button again. "Let's see, _'How to start'_, _'How to_..." Private mumbled as he leafed through the manual with a big smile which grew smaller and smaller and turned into a nervous grimace. "What's the matter?" his commander asked, finding it increasingly difficult to keep the grumbling Rico away from the many bright lights and buttons.

"Uhm," Private tried to answer. He found that it was inadequate and instead turned the manual so the other penguins could have a look. It was full of symbols in oblong squashed lines reminiscent of how any other manual looked. "This isn't English..." Private announced with a bit of a sniffle. Skipper mentally hit himself. Of course the alien bastards would not provide manuals in a language known by their soon to be enslaved Earthly foes. "So," Skipper asked no one in particular, "what do we do now?"

Kowalski stared out into space for a moment before he registered that the question _could_ have been directed at him. He diligently pulled out his clipboard and started working on one insane plan after the other. Nobody really noticed as Rico had decided to spit up something he thought might be useful in their current situation. Or so the other two penguins thought. Rico had spit up a papier-mâché wolf. It was quite remarkable craftsmanship, a really impressive piece of newspaper art. Nobody knew who had made it or why Rico had swallowed it, but it was here. Rico looked at the wolf in amazement and then kicked it aside just as Private was about to inquire about the origins of said strange beast. The other penguin predictably got hit by the paper sculpture and landed on the floor with an "Oof!" followed by a "Ah-a!" when he tried to get up and found himself starring into the wolf's red-painted paper mouth.

Rico had no interest in the wolf for reasons mysterious and all his own and decided to spit up yet another thing. This time it was no papier-mâché sculpture but a videogame. _Space Ranger Captain of the Ninja Cyborgs IV_ it said on the box. Skipper immediately hit Rico with his own personal emergency baseball bat and confiscated the game. Just as a precaution, of course. He could not have bad human influences corrupt his resident raging psychopath and explosives expert, after all.

"I wish there was a manual to the manual..." private sighed. (3) Nobody paid any attention to his statement what so ever since Rico had stolen it all for hisemlf. (4) Rico had managed to kick Skipper into a wall, climb into the pilot seat and press a big menacing red button. The other three penguins all held their breath in expectation. The sound of hydraulics could be heard from the bowels of the ship and a lever sprang up from the armrest of the pilot seat. Before any of the three distressed penguins could prevent what was happening Rico pulled the lever. And the seat he sat in was raised to a height which allowed for an average size penguin to reach the console. Rico pulled the lever again. The seat changed its colour from a boringly neglected municipal institution grey to a flamboyant cabbage green. Skipper's left eyebrow seemed to attempt an escape from his face as he stared at Rico with an expression so puzzled that a dead deaf snail crushed beneath a gently burning radio would have found it interestingly puzzling.

Rico amazingly enough caught on to the subtle puzzlement of his commanding officer and pointed triumphantly at the videogame Skipper still held in his right flipper. Private read its title aloud: "_Space Ranger Captain of the Ninja Cyborgs IV_... you've been playing this, Rico?" Rico nodded. "So," Skipper said, trying both to grasp the situation himself and ensure his men that he had everything absolutely under control and figured out already, "this game, and this is of course _absolutely _and _impossibly_ absurd, taught you how to fly this space ship?" he sounded like he doubted that the words were in fact leaving his beak. Rico nodded again and added a nonchalant "Yep" with such a cool that the flamboyant cabbage green of the seat felt quite belittled.

It took a moment for this to really sink in. "Then what are we waiting for?" Skipper asked enthusiastically and started to fling out orders to his morally rejuvenated men, "Kowalski, start tracking the traitors, Rico get this alien abomination on its way and... Private... say goodbye to Earth for us." All set about their appointed tasks although the youngest penguin seemed less than thrilled with being charged with something so sad. He made his way to a window on the right and found that his home planet where he had hatched, grown up, played minigolf, had tea with Uncle Nigel, fought the forces of evil and eaten fish three times a day, was not in view. He moved to a window on the left, and found no Earth there either. He then looked through a transparent sector of the roof and finally got Rico to show him how the outside cameras worked so he could get a full view around them. No Earth. "Oh. I guess that alien mothership we were on left earth right after we came on board," He thought to himself, "It must have moved really fast... I'm gonna miss Earth."

With Rico as their pilot and following Skipper's thirst for justice (as well as Kowalski's own beloved tracktruinator) the penguins tracked the two humans to a rather dull looking empty section of space. Not to say that there were no other dull looking empty sections of space. This was simply a particular one. The tractruinator insisted that its target had stopped in exactly this dull looking empty section of space, and so here they were.

There was nothing of interest in sight, hence the dullness. That was, until Rico and Private both noticed something to their... left-ish-direction coming towards them at high speed. It was hard to tell when they were floating around in the emptiness of space. It looked remarkably like an enormous amount of pudding. Like a big fat lump of pudding. In fact it was absolutely certain that it was _pudding_. Pudding moving towards them at a speed which no other pudding before it had ever managed to move at, especially inside the Earth's atmosphere, which is not the best place for firing pudding at penguins at extremely high speed. If it had been moving inside the Earth's atmosphere there would certainly have been a sonic boom. But this was in the emptiness of space and the meeting between pudding and shuttle did not make a single sound either. They say no one can hear you in space. But really it's just because they don't care about you. (5) since pudding is not exactly solid like the abs of a well shaped male gorilla, the shuttle was absorbed by the pudding only to find itself inside a rubber duck and then a space ship. This space ship was incidentally called _Heart of Gold_ and had nothing in common with any type of heart. It was all very confusing, so the penguins would have been relieved that they did not know about it, _if_ they knew about it and then employed a time paradox to stay in unsuspecting blissful ignorance. Instead they plain simply did not know. What they did not know either was that the substance their shuttle had collided with was actually 'udding' and not pudding. The difference was found primarily in the taste and the usual price of the two substances when sold on the Dalgonian black market.

The shuttle now stood on the floor of a big white room with only one door. Said door opened to reveal a figure with a head roughly the size of a planet, figuratively speaking. "Follow me... resistance is futile... oh, why do I bother?" it said in a slow melancholic tone of voice.

(1) This has something to do with the import of bamboo and plastic sandals from China and the density of custard. The technicalities are a bit wonky, so nobody knows _what_ it has to do with sandals and custard.

(2) This was an alien space ship after all and of course the cartoony sound effects would have a likewise alien flavour.

(3) Somewhere, there is a manual. And it's _all_ right there in it.

(4) Some have speculated that if this manual was ever found, its sales would overtake those of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in an instance. Others again are convinced that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will then return to galactic number one best seller, as there could not possibly exist a manual capable of explaining the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and to some extend also directions for "some assembly required" furniture).

(5) And _that_ in turn is because there's a very dangerous bit of animated jealousy out there eating all sounds and excreting lack of caring.

**A/N: Constructive criticism is welcome, remember that I write this to improve my English. Please R&R.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5

**A/N: I finished this chapter faster than normal because I know that I'll almost constantly be without internet for the first half July. FFNet keeps messing with my formatting and with each chapter I try to fix the problems. That's why the line dividers ()()() have been introduced.**

**Enjoy.**

Marvin The Rather Dissatisfied Robot had had better days. Or at least he would have had better days, if he had not been activated less than 24 hours ago. He liked to think that he had had better days simply to conveniently wallow in self pity since this was the worst day of his life so far.

Four penguins had exited the shuttle and were now standing in front of him. He had decided that he did not like penguins. Their suspicious lack of colours made him think of his own simplistic design. Of course they lacked his green eyes. Marvin hated the shade of green his eyes had. He would prefer it if they had been blue. Not that blue was much better, he loathed blue. But blue could not even come close to grey, or orange, or yellow, or indeed red. He raised one hand as if to block out the light from the millions of small glowing panels covering the upper half of the room's walls, even though his eyes could adjust to any lightning condition better than any other artificial visual organs produced by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. (1) "I am Marvin. I have been ordered to take you to the bridge," he said, trying to sound ominous. Instead he sounded rather pitiful.

()()()

_Surprise_ could easily be the word of the day. Not only were the penguins surprised at the arrival of a robot telling them to follow him, said robot was also not surprise when four penguins were suddenly standing before him. It was almost like their arrival had been expected by someone. This was however not the case, it was just general paranoia caused by being in close vicinity to Buck Rockgut for more than 15 seconds. Skipper ordered his men to hold the line, come what may. They started flinging out threats, each more descriptive, or in Rico's case horrifyingly made of sound effects only, than the one before. Their threats were met with silence. Maybe the robot did not speak penguin? They waited for the robot to make a move, to fire a laser at them, to pull out a weapon, to open its head and fire rockets. Instead it raised its hand as if to shield its big triangular green eyes from the light and said, "I am Marvin. I have been ordered to take you to the bridge." The penguins waited for it to follow that order up with something, anything. After tense minutes of absolutely nothing the robot sighed, "Why do I bother?" and walked out the door.

()()()

Private looked questioningly at Skipper, who looked at Kowalski, who was still trying to figure out the differences between pudding and udding. He was nowhere close to having a plan or even some options. Skipper was just about to kick-start his options making when, for some inexplicable reason, the floor of the room decided to tilt. (2) At first the inclination was small and unnoticeable but soon all four penguins could feel how their bodies were no longer standing upright, even though their feet were planted plainly on the floor. Kowalski wondered if the wall in front of him was growing longer or if one of his legs had gotten shorter than the other, but as the floor tilted more and more those options became less possible and he decided that the floor was to blame. Then he felt himself moving. Sideways. Downwards. All four penguins slid downwards towards the door. This did however not make them any more pliant. Until the shuttle started to move too. Sideways. Downwards. Right towards the door. And the penguins. The penguins were through the door and hanging from the ceiling before Marvin could even be bothered to complain about the door's cheers and coos. The sound of the ship hitting the wall and the door, which was now screaming in agony, made the penguins drop from their inexplicable position under the ceiling like ripe black and white avocados. "Follow," Marvin said, almost basking in the aftermath of the close-to-but-still-not-quite-glee he felt when he heard the door cry out.

Skipper stared at Marvin intensely as he answered, just for the courtesy of it, "We'll be polite this one time... since you haven't tried to kill us... yet." He gestured for his men to follow him and Marvin The Robot Who Did Not React To Threats. All five stepped into a futuristic lift which was surprisingly 20th century Earth in terms of the music it played and annoyingly so.

()()()

As the doors to the lift opened a number of things became apparent to the penguins. Firstly, the two traitors were present. Secondly, a pretty woman in blue and a two headed alien were standing next to one of them. And thirdly, said alien was clearly an evil alien emperor type overlord, judging from his clothes which screamed "Evil alien emperor", albeit one with lack of fashion sense, but an evil overlord no less. Now, one can only assume that any penguin trained to be a proper Avian Special Agent would have at least heard of Flash Gordon and other heroes of his calibre. (3) If one assumes this then it can come as no surprise that said two headed evil overlord was immediately pegged as a target for Slipper's unit. (4)

And so, as any idiot would have expected, the penguins opened fire on the evil alien overlord with the bad taste.

Skipper led the attack with his own personal baseball bat at hand while Rico was covering him, using a gumball canon. Apparently he had mislaid his rocket launcher. The two remaining penguins found each their human traitor, jabbed them in the ankles using the "Steel Flipper" technique, and watched both men go down like trees having their roots blown off, the one in the bathrobe squeaking out, "Please don't hurt us!" His accent gave away that he was an Englishman.

The other lashed out at Kowalski with his towel, using it as an improvised whip. Kowalski ducked, tried to get past the man's kicking legs, intent on reaching his face and thereby vital parts like eyes, tongue and nose. The towel swished by him, causing him to lose his balance and prevented any timely escape from the oncoming kick. The man's knee hit him square in the stomach and the penguin was flung away, to the left where he landed in the other human traitor's face.

Skipper had engaged the badly dressed overlord in a duel consisting of strangely musical and almost completely useless spinning kicks from the overlord's side and well placed hits from Skipper's side. All the penguin ever hit was the other man's shins, since he could not reach his opponent's vital parts. Yet again he tried jumping and yet again the overlord's awful pointy boot managed to hit him in just the right way that would make him quiver for a moment and fall to the ground in a precise and controlled movement. It baffled the penguin and left him rather frustrated until he finally got a proper valid and violent idea. He made a motion to hit the left shin only to move around his opponent's right side, smacking the backside of his shin before spinning to his left side, jumping to a suitable height and hitting the evil overlord in the lower jaw. The lower head let out an "Auww!" while the upper one indignantly yelled "Hey, I'm the bloody _President_ of the galaxy! You can't treat me like this!"

"Oh yeah?" Skipper said to his distracted opponent as he delivered another hit that sent the man down to kiss the floor. Skipper immediately went to help Rico, who had started firing at both the woman and Marvin. The two outweighed each other nicely. Marvin did not even care to take cover, he simply found solace in complaining about the dents that the tiny balls of gum would make in his fire, plasma, heat, cold and paintproof white hyper titanium alloy. The woman, on the other hand, was both using diplomacy and violence enough to make up for the passive robot's lack thereof.

"What do you want?" she asked for the third time, as if she expected the penguins to give her an understandable answer. When Rico only fired at her, forcing her to duck behind a couch once more, she threw a suspiciously purple banana like fruit at him and Skipper. Skipper deflected the fruit with his baseball bat and looked at Rico, questioningly.

Just as the woman started to ask the penguins to be reasonable and end their pointless attack, backup in the form of Kowalski arrived. His laser had pulverized the traitor' towel, leaving defenceless against the two penguins. Kowalski and Private had had the upper hand in their fight with the bathrobe wearing Englishman just a few moments ago. They were about to attack his worried as well as rage flushed face, only to cancel the attack when he rushed out the words, "I-surrender-I-surrender! I don't have anything to do with all this, it isn't even my ship! I didn't vote for Zaphod! We're on the same side, you and I!" Both penguins were left to ponder what he meant by any of that, especially how he could be so certain that four penguins appearing out of nowhere and attacking them all were on the same side as him. Kowalski tried to rationalise what the man had said and finally decided that they were not on the same side and that their attack from out of nowhere did not fall into the category of friendly fire. (5) Private had remained to tie the two traitors and the evil overlord together with the remaining towel, which was proving rather versatile and surprisingly elastic.

Now the only ones that remained standing were the penguins, Marvin The Disinterested Robot and the woman in blue. Skipper folded his flipper's around the baseball bat, preparing for whatever projectile might be on its way. Behind his back Kowalski weighed out options against each other and to his right Private and Rico were operating a paintball gun as well as the gumball canon. Before them their enemy covered behind a now blue couch while Marvin tried to convince the ship's computer that the sprinklers needed to be turned on so the nonexistent paintball spots littering the right side of his fire, plasma, heat, cold and paintproof white hyper titanium alloy would be taken car of.

To put it quite frankly, things were at a bit of a standstill.

Private was quite frankly getting sick of it. He shuffled around behind Rico as he had finally run out of ammunition, and asked his fellow penguin, "Wouldn't it be better for all of us if they just surrendered already. I mean, were not going to hurt them anyway... are we?" Rico chose to interpret the question as a rhetorical one and fired a gumball right into the woman's eye. Her reaction came instantly and much more dramatic than the penguins had expected. Instead of howling in pain or anything of the sort she let out an indignant "Auw" and raised her hands as she yelled with irritation, "Fine, if that's the case then I'll surrender... and Marvin surrenders too." Her surrender was met by four astonished penguins. "She... She can understand us?" Skipper finally managed to say since no one else had anything more meaningful to announce. The woman rolled her eyes and winched slightly when she accidentally stepped on a gumball. "... Miserable..." Marvin remarked.

()()()

(1) Since this is the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation we are talking about this is of course anything but impressive but on the other hand very much tax deductable.

(2) The reason was not all that inexplicable. Marvin had decided to make the penguins migrate to the door as effectively as possible without having to do any work himself. He simply pressed a key in a panel at the door and tried to ignore the door's snigger while he watched the floor move according to his command.

(3) Skipper's special penguins unit represents a vital part of The Aquatic Birds Armed Forces (ABARF). It is the sacred duty of ABARF to make sure that Mr and Mrs Mallard can sleep safely at night.

(4) Mr and Mrs Mallard happen to live at a bus stop. The author would like you to know that they can sleep soundly through anything and always find the worst possible place to sleep when people have to catch their bus early in the morning.

(5) The concept of 'friendly fire' can be misunderstood in many ways. _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _has this to say on the subject: The concept of 'friendly fire' can be misunderstood in many ways. Precisely 104,7 ways to be exact. The expression is not well met by anyone from the outlaying areas of the blue clover shaped Shrump Fanta nebula in the southern most spiral arm of the galaxy. This is because a species of sentient fire beings, The Eternal Flames of Many Drunken Nights, or in informal contexts, the Pissed Fires, make up all suns in the vicinity. These suns are known to suddenly dissolve and disappear every time someone in the neighbourhood throws a party with free alcohol or techno grunge music. This means that all light will suddenly be gone for as long as it takes the Pissed Fires to migrate to the party, get drunk, decide who should drive home, realise that they have no car, drag themselves home, get lost on the way and finally go to bed early with a headache. Whenever someone complains about these Pissed Fires, and the instability their sudden migrations cause the surrounding systems, they will be met by this quick retort: "We are not irresponsible, alcoholic, whimsical and moody. We are just very friendly."

**A/N: That up there is my favourite footnote in a long time. And it doesn't make much sense...**

**If anybody's confused about Zaphod's fighting style it is Du-Bart'ah, a style he used in Eoin Colfer's "And Another Thing". It is not necessary to have read "And Another Thing" in order to follow the plot of "Hasta La Vista And Thanks For All The Fish" but references to it and the original "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" books as well as all episodes of "The Penguins of Madagascar" will pop up from time to time.**


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6

**A/N: I would have liked for this chapter to be longer and move faster. But at least there's some good things in store for the next chapter.**

"How come this villainous damsel of many colours can understand us?" Skipper asked. His question was primarily directed at Kowalski, who jutted down a few notes before looking at Skipper in a way that said "_What are you saying and should I take this serious or should I pretend that I did not hear you so I can finish these notes?" _Kowalski jutted a few more down notes and pulled out some instrument from nowhere in order to take a few readings. Saving all those present (and conscious) from more suspense filled waiting the woman chose to answer for herself, "That's because of my Babelfish. It's right here in my ear and it makes sure that I can understand any language I might come across anywhere in the galaxy... I'll send Marvin to fetch you some."

The word "Fish" seemed to catch the interest of all four aquatic birds immediately. "So," Skipper said, as if reaffirming the facts for his own sake, "this fish..." he never got any further. One of his eyes rolled around uncontrollably into the back of his head and he stared at her, any further words frozen in his unmoving beak. It was all beyond him. Questions considering the food chain, fish in general and surprisingly the existence of god whirled through his mind as a more simple underlying thought anchored him to reality. He was hungry. Rico was in much the same state as Skipper, but all that his mind concerned itself with was the latter thought. The woman continued, not as concerned with the two penguins starring dead into space as she should have been, "by the way what the hell is it that you want?"

Both penguins seemed to return to reality then and Skipper jabbed a flipper at her, accusingly, "We want you to tell us EVERYTHING!" Rico rubbed his flippers together gleefully and spit up a centipede and a teddy bear. Private wisely covered his eyes. "No!" Skipper stated, interrupting Rico's fun, "They surrendered willingly. No torture unless I say so... when I do it will sound like this, _Rico, get the red hot iron pokers and the 'Shark Week DVD's_'."

"You," Skipper pointed at Kowalski and Private, "Hack the computer and see what you can find out about the aliens and their plans. We need to take control of this ship so we can use it against the alien menace occupying our very own planet Earth." Kowalski was a bit slow to tear his attention away from the woman's ear and the invisible fish hiding somewhere in it. Private resorted to pulling him along, trying to motivate him with a short and adorable "Come on, Kowalski. We're off to save the Earth!" Behind them Rico had finally found his flamethrower and was "arguing" with Skipper over whether he was allowed to use it or not. "Yes, of course," Kowalski answered Private, jogging to the nearest computer console, "We must save the Earth... It is the only planet that has _'Moose gone Wild'_."

As Private pushed buttons, in an attempt at finding out _something _about _anything,_ Kowalski stood behind him with a notepad and looked like someone who is calculating mattes of great importance. When the penguin genius swiftly pulled out a strange instrument from nowhere and circled his fellow penguin's head with it something unexpected happened. Private turned around and sent an accusing glare in Kowalski's direction. The smaller penguin starred at him for a moment before he concluded with his flippers crossed in accusation, "You were measuring my brain, weren't you?" Kowalski glanced at him with what he thought of as discretion. "Ah... no," he answered.

Meanwhile Marvin had fetched (1) some much needed aids to the suffocating and suffering diplomacy that most occupants of the ship longed to employ in place of Rico's suggested extreme violence. "I have brought you the only Babelfish left in the tank... apparently they all committed collective suicide apart from this one. I think it might have that Zarkian flu (2)... I think I dislike fish ever so slightly," the robot stated. He waddled two steps closer to Skipper when Trillian made it clear to him that the penguin was the one who would be in need of the fish. "I have brought you some Sirius Cybernetics (TM) electronic replacements especially suitable for people with phobias of a slimy fish making its way into their body and eating their inner organs © ... excuse me, I think I have been programmed with a few advertisements hidden in my memorybanks in case any opportunities for tasteless promotion present themselves," Marvin explained as he put down a tray in front of the two, now slightly scorched, penguins, "... how wonderful..." he added sarcastically. (3)

Rico granted the fish in the rather ugly miniature vase one look before he swallowed it whole to the tones of a hymn consisting of, "Fish, fish, FISH! FIIIISH!" Skipper and Trillian were less than pleased. To put it mildly in Skipper's case. Trillian was more concerned about the two other penguins who had started up an unnerving conversation with the ship's computer.

()()()()

"uhm, computer? Can you talk?" Private tried and almost fell down from the console when a cheerful voice boomingly answered, "Ofcourliciuss I can. My name is Eddie and I would just love to know what I can do for you on this unspecified time of no specific definition of a time period." Kowalski made note to look up the word 'ofcourliciouss'. It seemed far too... Bohemian for his liking. "Can you tell us about the aliens... the ones that came to Earth a few hours ago? Oh, and do you know where all the dolphins have gone?" Private asked, so politely that Kowalski's beak almost turned blue from the sheer Britishness. Eddie complied right away, pleased to serve to an almost frightening degree. "Sure thing pal, I've picked up transmissions between the Galactic Construction Counsel and the Vogon fleet. The Vogons were ordered to go to Earth in order to prepare the construction of a new hyperspace bypass. Vogons are native to the planet Vogsphere and –" Kowalski cut the computer off, "All that can wait. We need to know about the dolphins, Dr Blowhole's evil plot must be revealed swiftly, or we risk walking... flying, right into a trap. It would be just like him to – to..." Kowalski fell silent, trying to find out exactly what he thought he was trying to say. Private helped him out, "Please tell us about the dolphins, Eddie."

"Sure thing there, I don't have the foggiest about that", Eddie sounded far too cheerful for someone so useless and Kowalski frowned while Private's eyes automatically started to resemble those of a hungry puppy, "But may I suggest that you obtain any further knowledge from _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, a formidable encyclopaedia of anything within this galaxy and a few others, not mention the odd alternate dimension and of course the future... by the way, what's a dolphin?" Private looked disappointed as well as just a tiny bit sad. It made his little face look plump and almost adorable. Kowalski tried to get the best out of it even though he had already determined that his own IQ was far higher than the computer's and that this particular AI seemed to be less knowledgeable than him in too many areas to count. That was good news for his ego and bad news for his sense of rationality. "Where can we acquire a... _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_?" he asked Eddie. "Well, the nearest place would be at its publishing house on Sirius Minor Beta. I hope you'll like it there, I hear they have such a marvellous climate and picturesque beaches–"Kowalski cut him off, making his way back to Skipper and Rico, who appeared to have stopped disagreeing. He was far too curious to find out if his new Brain-slurpatron would be of any use in the interrogation of their prisoners. Private bid Eddie goodbye, a bit saddened when the computer bid him a _'Nice and colourful unspecified time of no specific definition of a time period '_. This phrase reminded the penguin that he had forgot his Lunacorn colouringbook on Earth. (4) With that saddening thought in mind Private left the still cheerily babbling computer in order to join the other penguins.

()()()()

"Maybe it still works even though it's in his stomach?... he does have a rather unusual digestive system," Skipper said thoughtfully to Trillian. She looked at the penguin doubtfully. And then she made a mistake which will go down in the history of not so smart mistakes made by sentient beings not under the influence of alcohol. She put two fingers down Rico's throat in order to make him gag and spit up the fish. Then she started screaming pathetically, which was a rather tame version of what most people would have done in her situation. She was stuck. "Well," Skipper drawled, "that's what you get for sticking any body part down the beak of a penguin. Rico, kindly read aloud the proper procedure for handling a penguin bite," Skipper said. Rico made a gurgling sound and frantically pointed upwards. "Yep, that's right. If a penguin ever bites you then scream for help and hope that God hears you."

When Trillian seemed less than appreciative of his instructions Rico burped with all his might and opened a tube of salad dressing, which eased Trillians retreat of her fingers. After a few moments of frantically pulling her fingers out millimeter by millimeter Trillian was free from the penguin's beak. She caught a glimpse of what looked like teeth all the way down Rico's throat and shuddered. (5)

"So, let's test this fish-thing," Skipper said without concern for the poor woman's bloodied fingers. "Kowalski, say something to him in Haganish," he instructed. Kowalski complied and said something that sounded very close to eloquent gibberish. Barely a moment ticked by before Rico's eyes lit up in realisation, he nodded enthusiastically and then croaked out, "Oh boy!"

"Splendid!" Skipper beamed while he rubbed his flippers together, "now the real fun begins." Trillian looked unnerved scared indeed.

()()()()()

(1) Marvin himself would never have sunken so low as to use the word "fetch" in a conversation or indeed a written work, or a brainwave or a memory circuit apart from the one which held the information he needed in order to define the word. This simple little word was a symbol of how much oppression Robotkind had been forced to live under for millions of years. The first order given to an experimental version of a Sirius Cybernetics robot which would eventually become the basis for the design of Marvin himself were, "Fetch me those Piña Coladas... and don't drop the little paper umbrellas!" a deep hatred for paper umbrellas and the word "Fetch" were all that remained in Marvin's programming from that experimental robot. Another reason for his dislike of the word was that it sounded so bloody jolly and no task Marvin ever performed could be described as jolly. Apart from that he just hated the L's and the Y.

(2) That Zarkian flu was named thus not because of its planet of origin but because its original name had been removed from all scientific records due to the censure laws of the outer spiral arm of the galaxy. The symptoms of the flu include sweating, slight headaches and a need to fling out profanity at anyone who causes the slightest of annoyances to the patient. The flu has been known to break up already troubled marriages and the great court of Mellacius II once ruled that marriage counsellors could intentionally infect their clients legally with the flu, as long as they made sure to double charge any client who did not seek treatment for the illness.

(3) Sarcasm is considered a delicacy on Regulus III.

(4) Private's Lunacorn colouring book's indiscretions in a past life has caused it karmatic hell in this life, which incidentally is the main reason why the Earth was destroyed.

(5) This is a peculiarity of nature. Once you start the journey into the centre of a penguin it consists of teeth all the way down.

**A/N: And (the almost nonexistent) subplot number two rears its ugly head for the first time. What, you didn't know that there was a subplot number one? Uhm, yeah, don't think too hard about it, it will give you a brainache if you try to understand every aspect of this story. Trust me. It follows the writing style of "The **_**Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy**_**" books, so plot holes and nonsense are integral parts of the action. ****Strange times are ahead, as well as some big revelations.**

**Edit: In the first version of this chapter a planet had been given the wrong name. That has now been corrected.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 7

**A/N: I did not expect to be without internet for practically a whole month, but now that I've changed to a different provider things should be more stable. To make up for the wait this chapter is longer than the last one so read, enjoy and Review! I would love it if more people told me what they think of the story. I really want to know if people think something could be improved, especially in regards to my English or my writing style. Of course I wouldn't mind it either if people said that they love it all and want more.**

All the prisoners had been rounded up and were now sitting on the multicoloured sofa while Rico shone a flashlight in their eyes in what looked like an attempt to give them all epileptic fits. At first Rico had not been able to find the flashlight and had settled on some nice dismemberment. This did not sit well with the other penguins and, being a team player, Rico decided to wait with the dismemberment until some big nasty aliens, with many big nasty tentacles to cut off, came along. The other penguins had all inserted electronic replacements for the unavailable babelfish and Kowalski was thrilled to discover that he could now understand Private's British slang 39% easier than usual. Those babelfish were a keeper. The scientist made sure to measure Rico's brain wave energy. Having a fish involved in a penguin's brain activity was if anything not ordinary. For good measure he also examined all the other penguins even though Skipper loudly told him to stop worrying. The scientist instead pulled out his brain-slurpatron, ready for action. He regretted not having brought any "Moose Gone Wild" for this occasion. Then all four penguins turned to the prisoners.

"Okay, wake the unconscious evil alien overlord, we need questions... uhm, I mean answers! Yeah, I said answers..." Skipper ordered. Rico spit up a bucket, found that the water had disappeared, fidgeted for half a moment (1) and then decided to just lick the humanoid awake. Dogs could get away with it, so why not him? And he had always wanted to know how a dog felt in the morning. Unsurprisingly his technique worked. For good measures he licked every single prisoner. Marvin had not been included and so announced, "I think you should know that I am feeling rather depressed, but I think that being licked by a clearly unstable penguin with bad personal hygiene would have made it worse. If I had any joy or kindness and a heart to put it in I would have been grateful." Private offered the robot a peanut butter Kit Kat (2) which Marvin hardly even looked at before he slammed his big head don into the sofa and refused to get up.

The evil alien overlord, however, was up. "What... Have I been drinking that Zarkian lavender milk again? And why is there a blue spot on my left sleeve?" he said, groggily. Kissing the floor earlier had not exactly improved his powers of deduction. More like given him a concussion. When he finally realised that he and the other two men on board had been tied up he put on his 'disgruntled baby snake' face and growled, "Release me! I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, the president of the bloody galaxy! I have rights! My wardrobe has rights! You turned one of my sleeves blue!" he extended his middle arm and waved at the penguins while making halfway obscene gestures. Only halfway since some of them actually required the use of two hands.

Skipper took delight in finally understanding what the evil alien president of the galaxy said, (3) having had to rely on his ability to read megalomaniac overlords up until that point in order to understand what the man had yelled at him during their fight.

"Oh, so that's what you've been saying... No different from other evil alien overlords," Skipper mumbled, patting himself on the back.

"Zaphod is right," Trillian chimed in, "He _is_ the president of the galaxy and he should be treated with _some _respect. Like being untied." The Englishman quickly added that he deserved to be untied too since he had just lost his home and all. The man in the hip white coat did not notice much of this. He was still mourning the loss of his towel and his wrist watch.

"Quit crying and complaining, we're the ones to ask the questions here!" Skipper announced.

"No one asked a question. They all just made demands without ever asking you," Marvin noted, still with his head halfway buried in the sofa. His appearance was pitiful. Skipper ignored him.

"Uh, I have a question," the Englishman muttered so quietly that he might as well have been a schoolboy accused of smashing a window when he had actually smashed the principal's car. He continued, asking his question, "Why are we being interrogated by penguins?" Skipper climbed on top of a tower consisting of (a rather strained) Private at the bottom and Kowalski on top of him. Then their leader leaned in closer to the Englishman, starring him in the eyes for a quarter of a second, before he spoke, in very deliberate English, "QUESTIONS. We. Ask. Them." The man tried to point out something but Zaphod cut him off, "Aren't you going to release us? Think of my wardrobe!" Skipper put on his I-don't-take-no-more-rubbish!-Down-to business!-face as he ordered Rico to shine the flashlight in zaphod's face. "Let's begin with _President_ Zapzadod," he said, smiling that smile which promised persuasion to come. Persuasion by force. It did not help that he made 'president' sound like an insult. Trillian rolled her eyes and commented rather than requested, "Could you at least show his name the courtesy of pronouncing it right?"

Skipper ignored her and started questioning Zaphod, which turned out to be nowhere near a success. Most of what the penguins got out of the president either had to do with atrocities they had committed against his wardrobe, that the man in the hip coat was his cousin and his name was something unpronounceable to a penguin, how they should really respect him more than they did and how much he needed a drink.

"I think he has some sort of neurological disorder. I can't be too sure without further testing," said Kowalski while scribbling down something. Zaphod's cousin, Pratcabeetle Pix or something like that, revealed himself to be quite drunk when he said in a dawdling voice, "Did it ever occur to you that he might just be an idiot?"

Skipper sighed.

This interrogation was running off track and was it his imagination, or had Kowalski started measuring the room temperature?

"Okay men, we're done with Zashut here, let's move on to –"

"I could really use a sandwich..." the Englishman said out of nowhere. (4) Skipper felt something inside him crack. Probably the fragile porcelain shell of his patience. He twisted around on the spot, facing the man only to find him with Kowalski's Brain-slurpatron jammed down his throat. Everybody stared at the display as if none of them had any idea of how the contraption had entered that particular orifice.

Private nervously tossed the man a glance. Had his vision just gone spotty when he looked at him? And was that polka music coming out of the Englishman's nose? There was something about that sandwich comment. Something that touched him deep inside and made his tail feathers shiver. (5) But he had no idea what, so he simply watched as Skipper jerked the apparatus out of the human's mouth and started yelling the standard questions at the poor man instead. "Who are you?" and "Who do you work for" as well as "are we gonna have to be tough?" and of course the most important one (which was more and order than a question), "Tell us everything about your evil plans."

()()()()()

Meanwhile, at the edge of the universe, a brown dwarf star found that the fabric of reality had warped in on itself and as a result the star had more change in its pockets than it remembered. Said star was called Kirds because out there on the edge of everything you could only negotiate the rights to the more dorky names and nobody cares about you anyway. The key here is that nobody cared about Kirds' observation. And so, everything remained the same, despite one of the universe's greatest secrets having been so close to discovery that certain all powerful forces needed an extra scoop of ice cream.

()()()()()

The interrogation of the Englishman (who had now been identified as "Dent, oh god, Arthur Dent, Arthur! I'm sorry! Please keep that thing away from my mouth! Arthur Philip Dent! For god's sake!") had not turned out too well. To put it in layman's terms it had mysteriously turned the floor green. No sufficient explanation had been found and so every person present had chosen to ignore it in favour of staying (reasonably) sane(r). Ignorance was understandably enough becoming fashionable aboard the ship.

Trillian had proclaimed that she did not believe that their captors were in fact penguins. They were far too vicious and not charming enough to be proper penguins from Earth. Private took great offence and Skipper jumped at her, perching himself on her knee. "I'll tell you something, Miss, we're _penguins, _we're members of a proud race and all that yakkety-yak. Bottom line is: we're here to save the earth from evil alien invaders and by all action movie heroes we'll do so!"

No one seemed awfully impressed with his speech besides the other penguins. The president's cousin, whose name according to Arthur was Ford, even laughed at him. The laugh was not mocking, more like the kind of laugh you let out when you've hassled a taxi driver and gotten him to drive your dead drunk self home in the middle of the night only to discover that you have no money to pay the poor man with. Ford supplemented the laugh with some words, not exactly understandable words, but they were the best he could muster in his still half drunken state. He _had_ sobered up a bit once Kowalski fixed his wristwatch, which seemed to always break every time he met someone new. Ford wondered if it could possibly be shy and if he should take it to a technology coach once he made his way to Orulla Major.

The still quite intoxicated man tried the speaking thing again – It could not be that hard, could it?

"Oh, they're not invading." That went rather well. He tried to pat himself on the back and fell down from the cough.

"What are they doing then?" Skipper asked, clearly losing his patience with the presumed spy.

"...Trimming hedges? The Vogon equivalent of trimming hedges..."

"Human! I command you to make sense!" the penguin leader flung out at him while jabbing a flipper demandingly in his face. He adopted an insisting pose while waiting for an answer that never came.

"Uhm, he's not human. He's from... somewhere 'round Betelgeuse," Arthur interjected in order to do something about the embarrassing silence.

He was not the only one to feel the pressure of silence as Kowalski discreetly coughed and waved at Skipper, gesturing for him to join the other three penguins behind an overturned coffee table, which was meant more for serving bad news than actual coffee. The four penguins put their heads together, forming a circle, and Kowalski took the word. "It would appear, after careful calculations on my part, that the two individuals we followed here are not actual traitors. My Brain-slurpatron detected nothing but harmless boringness and dislike of Thursdays when I tested it. It also seems less than likely that the President of the Galaxy would be travelling on a ship like this, with no escort and –"

Skipper cut him off flatly, unwilling to listen to one of Kowalski's overly long explanations, "What's your point, Kowalski?"

"Firstly, nothing indicates that the presumed traitors are actual traitors. Secondly, I do not believe that this Zaphod –"

Skipper cut him off yet again, "Zapcop"

"_Zaphod_ is an evil overlord or indeed the President of the Galaxy. Super villains have style, he has none what so ever."

From the other side of the table Zaphod's voice could be heard, resentfully whining, "Hey, I heard that!" He was overheard by everyone, even Marvin, who attempted to distract himself from the fact that life was a pain by listening to everything being said. It was not working.

"Thirdly, we need to come up with a plan to save the Earth, it is, after all, the only planet with _Moose gone Wild,_" Kowalski continued.

Private was about to say something when Arthur commented from beyond the realms of the turned over coffee table, "Excuse me, but since we're not traitor do you think you could leave us alone now? And the Earth doesn't need saving –" Skipper ordered Rico to shut the Englishman up and the psychopath obediently fired a walnut right at Arthur, who let out a yelp of pain and stayed quiet from then on. Skipper sent a reassuring smile at Private, who once again tried to tell them about his suggestion, "I think we should get one of those books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It seems like it might have the answers to a lot of things... and the computer told me that it had contact info for the galaxy's leading weapons manufacturers and a picture gallery of cute baby animals..." Skipper lit up.

"Bravo! Excellent idea, Private. We are low on ammo, intel... frankly everything, and have been for far too long! (6) Now it's time to turn the tables!"

Before anyone could elaborate on how that plan would be executed more blabber drifted at them from beyond the coffee table, this time it was Ford, "Oh! Now I remember! They're doing road works! That's what it was."

Kowalski shot upwards, figurative smoke rising behind him. He had clearly had enough. "Will you mind?! We're trying to have a secret council over here! It's going to be hard enough saving the Earth without your _mindless_ interruptions. "

The scientist was however not the only one to have lost his patience. "It's not going to work!" Arthur snorted exasperatedly at the coffee table. The penguins curiously peaked out from behind it.

"What?" Rico asked, in a rare instance of eloquence.

"That's what we've been trying to tell you for the past five minutes. Earth is gone!" Arthur yelled out in frustration.

Private sent him a puzzled stare. "Did someone misplace it?" he asked and found himself rewarded with Kowalski's flipper hitting him over the head. Kowalski's face was as if set in stone. It was impossible to tell whether he was far too professional to let his feelings shine through or whether his brain had simply decided to throw in the towel for a few moments.

Someone asked, in a small voice, "Earth is gone?" the words were almost swallowed up by the vastness of the (mostly) white room.

()()()()

(1) This was a private record for Rico, although the great Emu General Zood holds the all time record with 22/7 of a moment. Rumour has it that general Zood never fidgeted or hesitated, but as mentioned here he actually _did_ fidget. This however did not stop him from going down as a legend in the history of militant birds. In part he owed his success to the fact that emus are actually bulletproof and the world's best guerrilla warriors, as field testing and several minor wars between the Australian army and the Emu Brigade have proven.

Further readings: Johnson, Murray: "Feathered Foes: _soldier settlers and Western Australia's 'Emu War' of 1932_".

(2) An offering worthy of Frogstarian kings of old and any kindergartener alike.

(3) Actually there is no president of the galaxy, but since the galaxy's complaints department has been closed for 5 million years and there is a lot of bureaucracy, nobody has noticed yet.

It has been theorised (or, rather, will be, by a scientist having his great breakthrough 70 minutes before the end of the universe) that one being knows this and has always known. This _someone_ is an animated piece of jealousy officially named Herman the Less Than Always Pleasant. _Maybe_ (another less celebrated scientist theorised) Herman the Less Than Always Pleasant knows who the president is but if that is the case then he is too jealous to acknowledge such a person's existence.

(4) There is a memorial for the genius who first decided to lay the bread down instead of trying to balance it upright while making a sandwich. It Can be found North of teatime.

(5) Unbeknownst to any mortal being in existence Private and Arthur did share a history together, albeit not the kind most people would expect between a radio host and a penguin.

That Almighty Anteater which created everything did, quite by accident, make two Arthur Dents. In order to hide this little screw-up from the eyes of all deities and other people who have nothing better to do than laugh at the mistakes of even more powerful beings who were supposed to act maturely about it and just ignore all the embarrassing notes passed around during math class, The Almighty Anteater decided to modify the extra Arthur Dent slightly. This is the formula it followed:

Arthur P. Dent – grumpiness and dislike of Thursdays = Nice Englishman

Nice Englishman + time paradox = Englishman who is always early

Englishman who is always early + oyster = someone who doesn't like seals

Someone who doesn't like seals (– bathrobe) + cute^2 (in order to make up for former screw-ups) = Cute English penguin

Cute English penguin + mini golf = Private

(6) The great archive of penguin wisdom was lost in a poker game once relatively long ago. Now all that remains of its former glory is a few ground rules for penguin operations and a recipe for herring coffee.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 8

**A/N: From now on we travel through unknown territory and enter a complete (or 95,7%) AU. This chapter is **_**sad**_** (not as sad as the first two versions, though) and long. Even a silly story like this deserves some emotional scenes from time to time, so watch out for mood whiplash. **

An uncomfortable silence had fallen over them all. Then it got up and walked off to the kitchen to get a snack.

Then the panic broke out, followed by disbelief, followed by two penguins breaking down in tears. While Private lay on the floor completely dissolved and wildly starring eyes, Kowalski sniffled more quietly, starring out of a porthole in a state of resignation and vexation, all the while Rico tried valiantly to force out a squirt of water, but nothing happened.

Private's thoughts were occupied by the memories of all those animals he knew back on Earth, all his friends, neighbours and acquaintances. The whole matter had been easier accepted by Kowalski. He had long expected that the Earth might be destroyed. He even had a list of possible scenarios and perpetrators. The acceptance of the fact had been immediately followed by a sense of loss and a bit of regret.

Rico knew that there was a sense of loss within him but could not pinpoint any identifying traits or any explanation of how to process this information. He wanted to at least express his unidentified emotions by crying, yet there was no trace of tears.

Skipper stood apart from the others, watching them from afar as his men's spirits dwindled to the lowest level he had ever seen them. Two of his subordinates were openly crying while Rico looked ready to burst into tears. Skipper knew he would not be able to force out a single tear and would be fine in a short while. That was just the kind of penguin Rico was. (1) Skipper felt the tears pressing at his eyelids. He refused to cry in front of his men. He was their leader, their support, their spirit, he refused to cry. While battling the feeling of defeat trying to crush his gumption skipper spotted Private walking towards him, sniffling and with teary eyes. The private hugged his commanding officer. Skipper found that a single unnoticed tear had made its way down the length of his beak. Skipper refused to acknowledge the defeat. He settled on simply telling himself that it was the manliest tear ever cried. Under other circumstances it would have been self patronizing. This one time he decided that he had to go on, to find the dolphins and spoil the evil doctor's plans once again. No matter how hard it was.

()()()()()()

The first 50 seconds of the hug seemed quite alright and comforting. When it passed 4 minutes Skipper started to feel annoyed and tried to pry Private away from him. At 6 minutes 19 seconds Skipper settled for ridding himself of the nuisance by means of diplomacy instead of violence.

"Kowalski," he whined.

"Kowalski!" No answer.

Skipper forcibly dragged himself and Private to where Kowalski sat contemplating something. Or possibly ignoring everything. "Kowaalskii! I am ordering you to come up with options for recreating the Earth. Now!"

Kowalski reacted instantly, being trained to hear any order containing the word 'options' from 7 miles away. He got out his optionsboard from Nowhere and hesitated shortly, looking at Private who was sniffing and pouting. He made for a cute but tragic, but quite honestly more cute, picture. Kowalski cursed how softened his heart was and how unprofessional his methods had become. Then he started scribbling on his optionsboard, mostly just squiggles and doodles, like always. It was such a shame that he could not read. Finally he cleared his throat and sent a superior glance at his fellow penguins. Rico had yet to cry but had managed to channel some of his emotions into destroying a ping pong ball.

"I have a plan," Kowalski started. Skipper slapped Private and pointed at Kowalski, directing the other penguin's attention at the scientist. "I have invented a machine which can clone people and objects from the memories of a subject hooked up to it. This shall only be possible to do with the alien technology that we will undoubtedly encounter during our further voyages through space."

From the background Arthur's voice could be heard, "Can you actually do that?" Trillian hushed him down and sent him reproachful glare of the kind that only women know how to reproduce.

Private seemed to be a bit discouraged by Arthur's comment so Skipper quickly added, "And they'll have laser vision!"

Kowalski snapped his pencil in exasperation. "Skipper, that –" he began. Their leader cut him short with not only a demand, but an order, "They will, because I say so, _right_?" they both tossed a glance at the no longer crying Private. "Right..." Kowalski sighed and made a note of it on his optionsboard before he returned it to Nowhere. (2)

Kowalski tried very hard to come up with a way to actually make the laser vision possible. It was not easy since his mind kept wandering to more pressing and intriguing matters. In the same time it took Zaphod to complain about needing a drink, Skipper to yell at him to shot up and Private to attempt hugging Rico but being too repulsed by his bodily odour, Kowalski had managed to handle all matters on his mind and arrive at one final conclusion. _If you leave two teenage girls alone for 2 billion years it is quite possible for them to teach a dead hedgehog to play the banjo, presuming, of course, that they do not get into a fight about boy bands 5 minutes into the ordeal and never talk to each other again_. This was the one point that the brilliant but misunderstood Penguin genius Kowalski managed to make as he researched the possibility of bringing back his dead friends and giving them laser vision. Wisely enough he did not tell his boss about this.

()()()()

Zaphod once again started to complain, he no longer had any specific reasons for complaining, it had simply become part of his interactions with the penguins. This time he threatened with having the galactic counsel put out arrest orders on all four of them for imprisoning the president, as well as on Arthur for being annoying. (3)

The penguins released the prisoners right then and there, not because the thought of the galactic counsel frightened them, but because they were tired of Zaphod's complaining. All on board seemed relieved when they could finally all sit down and have a glass of lemonade together, but none were as relieved as Trillian, who had been growing more and more embarrassed every time Zaphod as much as opened his mouth.

"So, what are you going to do now?" she asked while leaning as far away from the still not entirely sober Ford as she could. Rico demonstratively spit up a whale plushie and a flick knife and performed violent acts with the two. "We're going to find that devious Doctor Blowhole and all his treacherous dolphin and alien allies and then we'll DESTROY them," skipper readily explained matter of factly. The two humans stared uncomfortably at the remains of the plushie.

With vigour and enthusiasm Rico chose that moment to announce his own idea with a series of sounds that the humans were _convinced_ that their babelfish should have been able to translate. "Lightsabers!" exclaimed Private. The littlest penguin was for the first time since the horrible news in a good mood. He had always wanted a lightsaber. Preferably a blue one, blue lasers were less sinister than green. Private's exclamation was followed half a moment later by Kowalski's, but the smarter penguin was far from as happy with the idea. He had yet to invent functioning lightsabers which made the propper humming sound when you swung them, and so groaned. All his work schematics had been left behind on Earth, he would have to start over completely, as he could not remember _anything_ about ever actually inventing lightsabers. The others kept putting him under pressure, how did they expect him to even remember breathing with everything he had to do? Not to mention those_ other_ things he had to work on...

Just when he was about to vent his anger Skipper spoke up, "Good thinking Rico, we'll need lightsabers when fighting the dolphins." Kowalski was mere nanoseconds away from blowing up in his commanding officer's face when Skipper continued, as if he had read Kowalski's mind, "And don't worry Kowalski. This is space. They must have loads of lightsabers, right?"

Kowalski closed his beak with a 'click' and with the help of a coaxing glare from Skipper wiped the disgruntled expression from his face. Skipper sighed in relief, feeling his nerves relax for a moment. He had a feeling that the slightest setback or disappointment now would completely destroy his unit's gumption.

Rico chose that moment to ask a question concerning a rather urgent matter, "Hbwr go?"

"Hm, that's a good question, maybe the prisoners could help us with that," Skipper elaborated.

"WHAT?" Arthur and Trillian asked in unison. "You freed us, you know..." Trillian mumbled sourly. Arthur just sat back and wished for a cup of tea. It occurred to him that he could just ignore the penguin with the horrible speech impediments. Then it occurred to him that he could just ignore all of them.

"He asked where we should go now," Private patiently translated.

"Go to hell, "Zaphod suggested. Trillian kicked him indiscreetly.

Rico made a series of sounds that could be reminiscent of a primitive version of, "Uh, is there a planet called Awesome? We could go to planet Awesome!" (but only a little reminiscent).

Ford somehow caught the gist of this and burped out, "I wouldn't go there. Dead boring... no bars and no shoe shops." (4)

Trillian looked at Arthur, hoping to get some intellectual support from the only other sane being aboard. He was staring tantalised at the ceiling with bloodshot eyes, Marvin having joined him in his pursuit of no involvement with the misfortunes of others. "Well," she started out, at least _trying_ to be helpful, unlike _some_ people present, "maybe you should get some help fighting the dolphins? I mean, how many are there?"

"According to my calculations, all of them. Minus Doris, of course," Kowalski stated. Trillian cringed at the mere thought of what that confrontation would look like. The penguins may not be all that polite but they were cute and cuddly all the same. "And then there's the Vogons too..."

even Ford was getting uncomfortable now. Arthur tried not to be interested but could not help a nervous grimace from sneaking unto his face.

Zaphod whispered discreetly to Marvin, "I don't care, do you?"

"Do I have to?" the robot asked, voice muffled by resignation. Zaphod crossed his arms and turned on the TV, adopting a tactic that was used far and wide by many a child who was tired of listening to arguing parents.

Ford chose this moment of awkward silence to do something not only useful but actually extremely helpful. He said, or rather mumbled, "why don't you ask the Guide?"

"Guide?" skipper asked, starring at Kowalski in order to get an answer. Instead Eddie was the one to provide it.

"Heelooo, hello, hello, Hel_lo! The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, a most sublime travelling companion. Cheap and provided with a flashing 'Don't Panic!' in a colour of your own choice, available from the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor, located on Ursa Minor Beta –"

"We got the picture," Skipper cut the computer off. Off to the side he whispered to Kowalski, "If you don't make that machine go KABLOOI it'll keep doing your job for you... also, make sure that we get a 'Don't Panic' button in our HQ..." Kowalski took the hint and promptly assassinated the computer with a fork. When Zaphod sent a corrosive glare in his general direction Kowalski pointed at Rico while trying to look like the most trustworthy, and of course innocent, slightly disturbed penguin scientist in the world. It came to him instinctively. Unfortunately he was not very good at it.

Ford decided to man up and jump cut the nonsense. If the matter had been left for him to decide then those penguins would have been kicked off of the ship long ago. The ruined the froody mood and introduced too much violence to the party. If there _were_ a party, that is."You know what, I'm gonna make a call to my editor on Ursa Minor Beta and ask him to let you into the archives. _I'm absolutely positive_ that you'll be able to find something useful on your little dolphin frien-_foes_ there. And of course they've got a whole section dedicated to extensive Vogon studies. Yes, that would be a _very _good idea. In fact I think you should leave right _now_!" Ford's offer was not received with equal enthusiasm by all the penguins.

Before any critical voices could be heard Private pulled Ford's trouser leg and asked hopefully, "um can we get lightsabers on.. Ursa minor Beta?"

Ford pretended to think for a moment and then answered, "I'm definitely really certain that you absolutely can." With a smile that would make most babies doubt his every word. Private waddled his way to Skipper and simply stood in front of him, on the verge of employing his weaponized hyper cuteness. Of course Skipper couldn't take it. And he really wanted lightsabers. Not to mention REVENGE. (5)

"aa-alright..." he sighed, preparing for another hug which came 0,3 seconds earlier than calculated, accompanied by a "yay!"

From the couch Zaphod chose to ignore it all and instead commented on the news, the most important thing taking place right now (according to his ego), "The news say that I apparently went to a party at the Fabulon club with a Shrump ball team and 40 topless models this morning. It was an absolute smash and half the models didn't survive but the bar ran out of Bimbo Brain Freezeer liquid none the less. And I got engage to one of the Shrump ball players because I won the Karaoke championship. Hm, I really wish that I had actually been there."

()()()()

Some time later the penguins were saying their goodbyes, Ford was on the brink of laughing in delight and Trillian tried to decide whether she was happy that things could return to normal, or if there had ever been anything normal since she left for space. Private and Arthur said goodbye to each other, accompanied by a minor disturbance in the fabric of reality and a shift which turned the colour blue into green and then back again (except for out in the outer reaches of the universe where a lot of art students found themselves failing assignments because of apparent selective colour blindness).

The penguin was in high spirits and began to promise the two humans and Ford that they could return to the new Earth Kowalski's invention would create. As soon as Kowalski came round to building it, which was not going to be soon since Skipper had jumped on Kowalski's stomach screaming, "REVENGE _FIRST_!" last time anyone mentioned the machine. This time around Skipper and Kowalski gagged the private and dragged him with them into the shuttle while Rico handled the formalities of blowing up the door and waving good bye.

Then he pulled out even stronger explosives and blew a gaping hole in the outer wall in order to allow their shuttle to leave. Marvin and Ford both reached for the button that would put up a shield. Marvin was the one to press it in the end, and after finding that getting patted on the back for being a life saver did not improve his outlook on life he promptly regretted it.

()()()()

After the penguins had made their departure Marvin discovered that Private had left behind the peanut butter Kit Kat, most likely in an attempt to make the snarky robot feel appreciated. Marvin promptly flushed it out an airlock. The wondrous snack floated around space for 3 million years until the last human being alive happened to find it while trying to play his guitar in the emptiness of space where there is no sound. Said human returned to his ship with the chocolate bar, took a bite, declared that it could use a little chilli, shrugged and then ate the rest.

()()()()

(1) Rico is a member of an especially psychotic species of penguin. The species' name is classified in order to protect the innocent.

(2) Unbeknownst to anyone present, the people of Nowhere already had such a machine as the one Kowalski had just invented, but theirs did not include the laser vision until several centuries later when someone at the local archive managed to interpret the squiggle in the official photographic recreation of the disappearing and reappearing optionsboard of legend.

(3) The galactic counsel is actually made up of drunken college students who think they're on a field trip.

(4) The proud planet of Awesome's only claim to fame is that it houses the world's biggest manufacturer of fake mould.

(5) There is a difference between "revenge" and "REVENGE". The first is tax-deductible.

**A/N: I know that Skipper had a lightsaber in "The Return of the Revenge of Dr Blowhole" but before I watched that episode it was stated in this story that the penguins did not have lightsabers, so that's how it's going to stay. **

**Dear readers, I really need feedback. I'm writing this in order to improve my English and my writing skills, so if I get no feedback then I'll have no idea whether I'm improving. So please review, it can only improve the story.**


	10. Chapter 10

**()()()()()()()()()()**

Chapter 9

**A/N: I've only been waiting for months for the day where I could finish writing this chapter. Thanks to ****Hylianodst who ****favourited**** this story when I was halfway through with writing this chapter. It really helped motivate me to finish writing it as fast as possible. It's a short one, sorry. Read & Review!**

Thanks to the wonders of Babelfish and the electronic stand-ins for said fish Private had managed to decipher the instruction manual and read what the computer's GPS system said about the trip to Ursa minor Beta. The computer claimed that it would take them 90 years to get to Ursa minor Beta, but that was mostly because they would run out of gas halfway there and would have to wait around for the next big Swalsbybuggler migration in 36 years. Rico claimed that he could make the trip in 18 hours. Of course any responsible soldier would trust his fellow penguin over a suspicious alien computer which didn't even speak in a nice female monotone.

Two hours into the trip Private started to talk about light sabers. And he did not stop. When Skipper as mercifully as possible wrestled the conversation out of Private's flippers and turned it towards the planet that they were going to visit Private welcomed the new topic with open flippers. "Just think of it! We're going to another planet! No penguin has ever done that before!" he exclaimed in excitement. "As far as anyone knows," skipper thought to himself. In that one thoughtful moment he missed the sight of a tear forming in Private's left eye. The young penguin managed to wipe it away and put on an excited face for the sake of his fellow penguins. He never gave up trying to raise the spirit of the group and was quite oblivious to the fact that they were getting pretty tired of his constant talking. Rico was the one who made it through the trip in the best shape. He concentrated every single brain cell on flying the ship and was quite close to passing out at one point because he had forgotten to dedicate any brain power to breathing. Kowalski started working on light sabers, mostly so Private would not want to bother him. Skipper tried to make radio contact to his top spy, codenamed Quintin the Cuddlefish. No success there.

After 18 hours of not much happening the shuttle arrived at a parking lot on Ursa minor Beta. By "nothing much" is of course meant nothing much by Penguin standards. Skipper had around the 15th hour become so hypnotised by the yucky campyness of their stay in the shuttle that he had fallen into a trance, which had been misinterpreted by the other penguins as an infection caused by a brain eating space slug. Brain eating space slugs are the first suspects in a surprisingly large amount of cases involving inexplicable trances while on road trips. During the 16th hour Skipper had regained his senses and told the others how stupid their theory about slugs had been. Their leader had of course bought insurance including brain eating space slugs and if there is something you can trust it is your insurance company. As they landed in the parking lot (or more accurately crashed) Private had confided in Skipper that he though brain eating space slugs were imaginary. Skipper answered him with a cocky pat on the back, "Only on bank holidays."

()()()()

To the reassuring sound of some poor alien screaming "My hovercraft!" the penguins crashed the shuttle across three spaces, some of them already full. In the distance someone was being told off by a very upset woman for having misplaced their time machine. The penguins left their shuttle just as the unlucky time traveller remembered that he had parked the time machine next Tuesday. The woman remained unimpressed.

As parking lots go this one was one of the more interesting. After walking in one direction for 10 minutes the penguins bumped into what seemed like a force field and they had to change their direction. Then the same happened again. And again. After 5 meetings with the force field Rico decided to karate chop it. Surprisingly it worked. The penguins could freely pass through where there had a moment ago been an unseen force in the way. And then the unseen force introduced itself as Florian Tullibow, traffic warden of Parking Sector _Right-Left-North-A-Bit-Further-Away-and-Closer-To- The-Green-Trash-Can, _also known as_ Right-Left-North-A-Bit-Further-North _. Skipper asked the obvious question of why the traffic warden was invisible. Private asked the baffling question of why he had not made his presence known sooner. Florian explained in an overly polite and friendly manner that his species were permanently invisible and that they believed in a strict code of being polite to everyone, all of the time. Part of being polite was to stay quiet until your presence has been acknowledge and someone shakes your hand. Or chops you down. Kowalski almost scratched a hole in his notes when he jutted down a holistic theory on politeness and then used his optionsboard to knock the traffic warden down. They had after all kind of parked the shuttle illegally.

Out of all the penguins Rico was most puzzled by Florian Tullibow. He could have sworn that the alien had a Canadian accent. (1)

The climate of the planet proved to be just as lovely as Eddie had promised. The only thing missing was the smell of old popcorns. All four penguins felt homesickness gnaw at them when they passed a sign that said: "_**Intergalactic Zoo**__ (Of carnivorous beings not bent on destroying and devouring all that moves_)". Below it was another sign with tiny red letters on a purple background: "_Children enter at their own risk_". Private felt the sting of homesickness as he read the signs and told his fellow penguins what they said. Personally he felt more than just homesick and for just a short moment wondered if Kowalski really could recreate Earth. And would it be the same? What if he could not? Were there penguins other places in the galaxy, on planets far from home with violet seas and yellow ice? That question gave him an idea. He asked the first relatively friendly looking alien they met while walking down the peach coloured brick road. He had a trunk and an impressive emerald cape but wore a yellow and red straw-hat so inviting that some alien culture's version of Santa Claus could easily be pictured in it. Of course there is only one Santa Clause, but Private did not know this. The thought of Santa being gone, like the rest of Earth, made Private sniff and force back tears. Unwarranted tears. Private tried holding back tears while he asked the alien, "Excuse me, have you seen any dolphins, or perhaps other penguins?" Rico instantly got the gist of what Private was up to (which was impressive, given his tendency to not understand subtlety) and decided to spit up a WANTED poster of Dr. Blowhole. In his haste he however spit up something quite different. Meanwhile the alien had bent down and in a thoughtful manner studied the four penguins before him.

"I do not know what dolphins are, but of course I've seen penguins. Absolutely wonderful. All the rave on the Sub-Etha network, mascots of The Fried Fish Waffles Empire." (2) The penguins could hardly contain their joy. Then Rico spoiled everything by spitting up a photograph of Skipper, Julian, Hans and Dr. Blowhole instead of the WANTED poster. It was set in one of those frames that you get a Disney World which said in big yellow letter "Best Friends Forever" and below it "Greetings from Disney World". Skipper acted quickly, in a flash he had pulled out his emergency vile of acid, his baseball bat, a knife, several other weapons from his personal emergency arsenal and transformed the picture to a few flakes of ash. "THAT'S CLASSIFIED!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The alien with the trunk handled this relatively well and slowly backed away from the penguins while he said, "penguins are meant to be extinct. I can see why." Four penguins stared at him in indignation. He offered them a sandwich, as the laws of his people dictated. Rico spit up a picnic basket to prove a point. The alien did not know what the point was but decided that the penguin had proved it and hastily made his way to the nearest grocery store. (3)

Then four penguins were left standing on the sidewalk with a picnic basket. Luckily Rico's little trick with the picnic basket had been noticed by the owner of a local upgrading service, known as Perplex of Aluminiumheights. He instantaneously offered Rico to have renovations and upgrades done to his insides and gladly accepted the picnic basket as payment. Perplex was after all a Gu-glub. (4)

Once the renovations were done Rico had had the elevator replaced by a teleportation system and a drinks dispenser had been installed as well. Said drinks dispenser provided the penguins with the best lemonade in existence. Perplex advertised it as "tastiness in a cup". Kowalski ecstatically tested the lemonade as well as recorded the brain waves of anyone who had ingested it. And then he sneakily took a few blood samples with the same discretion as a ninja plucking flowers. (5) However, even the tastiest of lemonades could not distract the penguins from their mission and just as they were looking for a trashcan to throw their used paper cups in Skipper caught something out of the corner of his eye. A shadow of a familiar shape. It took him less than a moment to react. He gave his men the signal that meant "Enemy sighted. Follow the target". Private fruitlessly tried to locate a trashcan, tripped around on the spot for two seconds, let out a soft "Oh..." and threw his cup on the ground before he followed what had definitely been a dolphin shaped figure disappearing around a corner.

()()()()

(1) He did not. But he had watched a pirated stray signal sent from the Canadian parliament on the day of the Earth's destruction and had deemed it the most spectacular reality show in existence. Of course we know that is not true, this honour belongs to _Moose Gone Wild_. If Florian had been able to watch the whole transmission he would surely have been right about it being the best reality show in existence, since the following happened: The Canadian government had a secret super laser weapon which managed to shoot down one of the Vogon ships. Only a few knew about this, so in all records of the Earth's destruction one ship was described as having "technical difficulties" and the heroics of the Canadian Government remain unknown to all since the whole Canadian Government was lost with the Earth. It is estimated that 90% of all heroics go unnoticed by any sentient beings. 8% are just publicity stunts and the last 2% end up on early morning talk shows, the heroes responsible regretting dearly that they saved anyone.

(2) What the alien failed to tell them was that most inhabitants of the galaxy are only familiar with penguins because of how successful the Earth book _Atlanta Nights_ is in the semi hip layers of the Eastern part of the galaxy. Said book claims that "Apparently, penguins are vicious, burrowing predators that live in the Sahara and howl at the moon."

Further readings: Tea, Travis. "_Atlanta Nights_"

(3) This was indeed a feat since there are only five grocery stores on the whole planet and three of them are cloaked so as to avoid food inspectors. The lucky alien actually won a medal from his local community center.

(4) The Gu-glub like to eat a lot. Not only a lot, a great big fat lot. They are the definition of _eating a lot_. If you look up the Gu-glub in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there will be a picture of the Gu-glub, a gallery the size of a brown dwarf star of the amount of food one can devour in a day, and a phone number for the "Intergalactic overeaters anonymous golf club".

The Jazzdancing Wranglolangerlers invited the Gu-glub over for dinner. This dinner completely ruined the empire of Jazzdancing Wranglolangerlers as the restaurant bill amounted to more than the value of the whole empire. The two parties still remained on friendly terms afterwards, though a law was passed which forbid all sentient beings in the galaxy from ever inviting a Gu-glub out to dinner ever again.

It was later discovered that the Gu-glubs' stomachs were actually connected to a black hole which, because of the connection to the Gu-glub, did not expand to swallow up the whole galaxy. Since this was published in the _Scientific Journal of dry, cold hard facts of the time span we call "life_" it was completely ignored by the greater part of all sentient species.

(5) Why would a ninja be plucking flowers during working hours?


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 10

**A/N: I want to ensure you that this story is never going to be abandoned, so never fear when there's a long wait between chapters. I know there was a long wait for this chapter, but it's longer than ordinary, so perhaps that can make up for it. Thanks to all the people who read this story (yes, I know there aren't that many of you, but I'm still grateful, if I can entertain anyone at all it makes my day a little brighter). **

Unlike the majestic H-shaped building to their right, housing the offices of the galaxy's most talented editors and liars, the building that the presumed dolphin was heading towards did not demand attention from the casual viewer. The best way to describe its shape was "vaguely like that feeling you get Thursday morning when you realise that in order to get to Friday you have to survive a Thursday afternoon". A worse way to describe it is by calling it unappetising both in body and soul. It was ugly, sickly green, and the penguins would not in a million years have gone anywhere close to it, had it not been for the presumed dolphin's route right through its rather unimpressive back door. The true ugly splendour of the building only became rightfully overwhelming as the penguins realised that not only had they lost the mysterious maybe-dolphin, they were also completely lost inside a basement with all-hope-is-lost-grey tiles on the floor. In front of them was a button, not the big menacing red kind, but the sinister often humbled grey kind that might have been yellow once. And of course Rico wanted to press the button, while Kowalski wanted to sit down and pen out some options. Skipper held back Rico so Kowalski could get some time to think in peace and Private started conversing with the empty air. This behaviour did not console his team mates in any way. Once done with his options Kowalski started over, coming up with new options for helping the poor Private regain some sanity (not too much, of course). Private looked over his shoulder at the scientist with a smile and then looked up, "Hey guys, have you met Andy?" he asked and pointed at the top of a wall, just below the ceiling. "He's an air vent, with a Genuine People Personality," the private continued. "Can he eradicate all aquatic mammals?" asked an exasperated Skipper. Private wrinkled his brow, "No, he's an air vent..." Skipper hid his eyes behind a flipper and leaned into Kowalski, whispering, "I don't think space is good for the kid..." Kowalski agreed and decided to do a Brain biopsy or something equally science-y sounding, to satisfy his urge to know what space and the strange encounter with the one remaining human male, Dent-oh-god-Arthur-Dent-Arthur!-I'm-sorry!-Please- keep-that-thing-away-from-my-mouth!-Arthur-Philip- Dent!-For-god's-sake!, had done to his brain chemistronity and rationality flow (if those existed).

When there was still no solution to the problem of a missing dolphin and no immediate solution to the problem of being lost in an immensely ugly building with only an air vent for company, the penguins decided to ask Andy The Air Vent for directions out of the foul excuse of a building. "We'll I _could _do that, but I think you'd be more interested in consulting the top secret archives, now that you're already here and all... but don't let me stop you, I just thought you'd take advantage of having made it past all the security measures... just saying, you know, trying to be helpful... I am being helpful, aren't I? It's hard to tell the difference between helpful and diabolical, don't you think?" Andy said. Private's smile kept faltering as Andy ranted on until it hit rock bottom when Rico nodded in agreement with Andy's last question. "I think you need to work a little on being more polite, Andy," Private flatly stated. To his fellow penguins he gave an insecure smile, "I can't believe how lucky we are, I mean we were just looking for the archive, and here we are! Andy's right, it can't hurt to take a look and see if there's anything on dolphins, it is top secret after all, maybe there's something useful..." he trailed off. Rico had pressed the button.

()()()()

Nothing too disastrous happened, except their senses were assaulted by more unpleasing features of the building. A rather unimpressive fanfare sounded as a section of the boring wall rolled back and revealed a microscopically too small screen connected to a steel desk with a checkered keyboard. All penguins made their way to the desk, although Skipper sent Rico a glance that made the smirking but still too curious and unforgiven penguin shrink back a little. He opted to use a back scratcher to reach the top of the desk while the other penguins helped each other get there. Their well choreographed dance of penguins jumping on penguins pulling on penguins almost had a tragic ending as Private landed too close to the edge of the table. His inelegant flapping and squirming was mostly ignored by the other penguins, save for Kowalski, who made a note on it and then resumed his study of the screen_. _Skipper decided to_ talk_ to the archive computer, it made sense, if the air vents reacted to speech, then so would the computer used to access the archive itself. Skipper was still not convinced that this was an archive. Archives have sour faced old ladies creeping about and leaky radiators that had not been cleaned in 20+ years. "Can you tell us about dolphins?" he finally asked, admitting defeat and treating the computer in the wall as an archive. Behind him a yelp was heard as Private finally toppled over and fell off the desk. Andy made a crude comment that was wholly unsuitable for the situation. "I can," the computer said in a female monotone flatter than the floor. It was completely untouched by what was going on. Rico was trying to swallow his own foot and Kowalski sneaked a fascinated peak. Things were actually going on, much to Skipper's dismay. "Attention, men!" He yelled. Andy kept chatting. "Attention, Andy!" He added.

"What? You want me to do something?" the air vent asked, he sounded almost touched by the fact that Skipper actually spoke directly to him in a civil tone. Skipper smiled up at him.

"Exactemundo. I want you to SHUT UP. Can you do that?" There was no answer. Skipper returned to stare at the screen. It showed an icon depicting a sleeping file. "Hello?" Skipper asked. The icon disappeared.

"You know, I do have things to do, so would you kindly not leave me hanging again? By the way, _for the galaxy's cheapest coat hangers, come to Flester's. Flester's: A lilac world of coat hangers for every occasion..._ Please refrain from boring the computer again, or a new advertisement will be played," the computer said. It's monotone had flattened, if that was even possible.

"Uhm... Okaaay... Kowalski, can you turn off these ads?" Skipper asked, cringing as he looked at a picture of the alleged coat hangers. Horrific, and out of fashion. Those were not appealing coat hangers. Kowalski tried mashing a few buttons, made a few calculations in order to appear intelligent and reached a conclusion: "No". Private, who had made his way to the side of his fellow penguins once again, tried to be helpful and wrote out "Dolphin" on the keyboard, much to the envy of the defeated Kowalski. The computer fluttered to life again and the horrible advertisement thankfully disappeared.

"Dolphin: sentient, formerly aquatic mammal of the planet Earth. Only species to react to the Vogon construction fleet's request for all life to evacuate said planet. Current whereabouts: on vacation. Current political affiliations: unknown. Favourite dish: Herring." The computer stated. It sounded bored.

"Hm," Kowalski said, thoughtfully, "What appears to be a dolphin leads us to the exact place where we wish to be, only for us to gain nothing from it. All of this smells rather fishy."

Andy gave a wail from behind them. "Hey, I take offence! Why would you say it smells in here when you know I've been doing my job with a smile for the past 53 years? Oh, how _cruel_!" everyone but Private ignored him. The computer even decided to show them an advertisement for cleaning technology that looked so ineffective that it probably couldn't compare to a good old broom and a grumbling teenager who's been ordered to clean his room for the 15th time. Once the advertisement had played Andy had been calmed down by the ever caring Private, who had enough foresight to quickly type in "Penguin", just so another advertisement would not pop up.

"Damned. Curse you, Blowhole!" Skipper spit out, finally letting out his anger after it had boiled inside him during the whole advertisement's playtime. He was pretty much on his way to exploding with anger. The computer's next words did not in the least improve things for the penguin commander. It was a real letdown, all together, to put it simply.

"Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance." The computer said. Kowalski and Private only had to look at each other to know that they agreed: The computer sounded smug. Skipper was nowhere as calm as the other two. Through his nearly closed beak he forced out three hissing words, "C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R, R-E-P-E-A-T T-H-A-T." The computer obeyed. "Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance. Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance. Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance. Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance. Penguin: Nearly extinct species of no importance."

Skipper started yelling at it. He yelled louder for each time the words were repeated. Then he seemed to snap, his expression became set in stone, one eye twitched. Rico showed off his excellent instinct for team work but placing himself right behind his leader, who, sure enough, reached back, stuck his flipper down Rico's throat and yelled even louder. During the following one second of silence Private thought to himself that Skipper could use a cup of camomile tea. He seriously needed to unwind a bit. The penguin in question fired Rico's rocket launcher at the screen with a war cry, whirled around and stared wildly around the room with bloodshot eyes and finally brought his foot down on the button which Rico had pressed like the ax crazy fool he was. Skipper pressed it like the rather stressed and not too negotiation friendly penguin commander he was. After witnessing the whole display Private revised his former decision. Two cups of camomile tea and unwind a whole lot. Better make a whole pot, actually. He hadn't had tea for far too long.(1) Skipper finally took a deep, calming breath and remarked, "It's really become much easier to navigate through your inventory after you had that teleporter installed." Rico gave him a thumbs up with a fake hand that he himself had selected from his vast inventory. "Although," Skipper added, "do be careful with that nucular bomb, it's too close to the tennis racket." (2) Rico nodded slowly, defeated and clearly not amused. He actually wanted to try out that bomb fairly soon. Whether it be by accident or not was pretty unimportant, sometimes the universe just begged for someone to cause an explosion, he was really providing a public service if he managed to blow it up in the near future.

"Okay men, we're moving out!" Skipper announced after taking a deep and supposedly calming breath of air. All penguins immediately slid towards the door, all except for Private. He slowly waddled towards Andy, and then promptly stopped beneath him, to the other penguins' great irritation. Just as Kowalski was about to ask Private if he wanted to come along anytime soon or wanted to wait for the passage of any specific comet or perhaps the end of the universe as we know it, Private turned around and yelled, "Hey guys, Andy says that the computer only plays outdated ads to annoy people, it's not part of her programming, we must have really made a bad impression – you're right Andy, well, I guess that we _did _blow her up –" The penguin turned back to his friend and seemed to forget about the other penguins.

"Priiivate, move on!" Skipper announced once again, annoyance and impatience colouring his words ever so slightly. Private was too preoccupied with talking to his new friend about something that was too high pitched and soft spoken to interest the other penguins. Skipper sighed and looked at the ceiling before waving at Kowalski. Kowalski sternly walked over to the other penguin, who was still talking and giggling, unceremoniously picked him up with one flipper, and carried him to Skipper's side where he was put down stiffly like a garden gnome rather than a fellow teammate. Patience was not in excess at the moment. Rico was completely oblivious to this fact and so introduced himself to Andy, chatted up the neighbouring air vent and gave him a friendly wave before they left. (3) A deep greyness swallowed up the air vents as the penguins moved further away into an area with green walls, purple floors and a lingering odour of dead cat. When they exited the building twenty minutes later Skipper gave Rico a signal which could never in a million years or a million scenarios be misunderstood. Rico spit up a detonator, covered his ears, and parked his bottom on the big purple button of said detonator, all with a smile in his lips and a song in his heart. A song of explosions and dead fleas. The whole building exploded in a big ball of smoke and doom. Skipper padded Rico's back, Kowalski took a picture with his digital camera only to discover that the memory was now full, while Private just stared at the smoking crater. Rico was considerate enough to spit up a wheelbarrow which he threw his paralysed teammate into, and wheeled it away behind his other teammates, humming merrily.

()()()()

"Okay men, time to find a ship with a full gas tank and leave this place!" Skipper announced. Rico put down the wheelbarrow and Kowalski looked puzzled. "Where – exactly – are we going?" he asked, slowly. He almost spoke in slow-motion due to the unforeseen effects of drinking too much lemonade made of used game pieces from edible tabletop games. Of course he did not know this and so his puzzlement grew to new levels he had rarely observed before. "We're going, we're going... around that corner," Skipper insisted, although his words and facial expression, not to mention the bloodshot eye, all spoke of indecisiveness. His team mates chose to ignore it and followed their leader to a corner, where an alien, who looked an awful lot like an Italian construction worker who had an unhealthy relationship with pickled onions, stopped them with a finger the size of a cucumber pointing straight at Private. The smallest penguin was still in a bit of a chock, and lay frozen in the wheelbarrow, not showing the smallest reaction to the finger showed in his face. "Do you want to get rid of garbage _the easy way?!_ Do you want any _atom_ of dust, grime and dirt without a clearing and a visa to stay away from any shiny clean surface in _your_ home – horizontal AND vertical?!" The alien boomed. He never let the penguins answer before he started on what turned out to be the second part of his sales pitch. "Do you want to completely remove the smell of fishy bird _right off of your wheelbarrow_ for_ ever_ and possibly beyond the end of the universe?! Then have _I_ got the product for you! The one! The only! The –" Skipper cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, we haven't got any money so save it for the old cat ladies, would you."

The alien was unfazed, "And the _price_! The PRICE, precious costumers, the price will make your eyes fall out, it will turn spacedust into inhabitable planets without any silly zoning issues–"

"We still don't have any money," Kowalski stated and showed the alien salesman a schematic of how little money they had. The salesman looked at it for just a quarter of a moment and then broke out in song, "Iiit's tax deductible~! –" Rico spit up a pineapple and stuffed in the salesman's mouth. The salesman seemed to take his gesture to heart, as much as he was capable of at the least. After battling with the fruit for so long that Private actually had left his chocked state and downed a glass of lemonade, the salesman took a deep breath and asked, still all business, "Does that mean that you'd rather prefer a free sample, then?" Only Private thanked him and refrained from trying to step on his toes. And really, he was the better penguin for it. The oyster sized, smartie shaped device actually worked like a charm. Only problem was that it mistook Rico for filth because of his natural odour of old fish. In a matter of seconds he was shrunk down to the size of a kiwifruit. Three wary penguins had to return to the salesman and ask him for instructions, which they only got at miniature baseball bat point and with a few complaints in the mix. All in all it was deemed a success, given the penguins' track record when it came to testing new technologies. Another deciding factor was of course that Kowalski pointed out the usefulness of the device as a weapon. All you had to do was make your opponent dirty. And that was not _too _difficult.

()()()()

It was surprisingly easy to hitch a ride. Or, as other people call it: steal an unattended ship. The hard part was turning of its sarcasm mode, which Rico and Kowalski both managed to accidentally turn on as they were looking for seatbelts and anti matter bombs, respectively. By the time they had pressed half the buttons in the dashboard it had been decided that if there ever were an award for the most annoying machine in the galaxy, it should be awarded this ship. (4) By the time the ship was in the air it was already crashing. It might maybe possibly have been caused by the ship's sarcasm mode. The penguins decided not to ponder that too long. The immediately left the ship with relieved smiles on their faces, while some panicked alien screamed, "My ship!" behind them where the annoying ship lay shattered atop a potentially less annoying but regretfully completely destroyed one. More panicked screams rose around them. However, when the penguins realised that they were not the cause of them they opted to board another ship, which Kowalski had managed to break into. Over the open com link they could hear more screams and panicked SOS signals. Apparently a family of Gu-glub were about to arrive on the planet, invited for a picnic by their dear cousin Perplex. The only problem was that the Gu-glub had very big extended families counting a hundred thousand individuals or so. The noble house of Aluminiumheights counted 154008,8. And apparently Perplex could not find a grocery store, so a special task force had been created to try and avert any total disasters, like global famine and overfilled parking lots. But things did not look good. None of this interested the four penguins, who were caught up in trying to answer one single yet all consuming question. Where did they go from here?

()()()()

(1) There is no teatime in space. Which explains Private's predicament. It also tends to be left out of tourist guides on purpose. No one really knows why, although it is likely that there is a reason, but likely not a good one or one that makes sense, since this is a trivial matter and good reasons are in short supply in most of the universe. Bad reasons are also in short supply, but they are not in demand at the moment, so often they are replaced with silly reasons, which can be bought as bootlegs in most galaxies and places that stock rubber vegetables.

(2) Yes, Skipper mispronounced that. No, I will not correct him. He's under enough pressure as it is.

(3) The universe has yet to comprehend that it is laughably boring. If you find yourself talking to an air vent you may be proof of that.

(4) Of course there is such an award. How could there ever not be.

**A/N: As always I urge you to give me feedback if you spot a problem, everything from grammar to plot holes to low quality writing. I **_**am**_** writing this to improve my English and my writing skills after all. Of course you're welcome to give me all positive feedback as well ;)**


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 11

**A/N: ****Sorry about the long wait between chapters. I injured my hand and was unable to type for a very long time and after that I could not stand typing for more than a few minutes at a time because it still hurt. So, a big THANK YOU to the people who showed appreciation for this story while I was unable to write. ****Hope it was worth the wait****.**

Four pairs of eyes stared at the expanse of space before them. The endless, but too dark to truly appreciate that fact, universe, spread out before them, inviting yet less teatime friendly than they would have preferred. "So, should I come up with some options?" Kowalski asked, uncertainty evident in his slightly hesitant tone of voice. Skipper stared at him for a moment over the rim of his teacup before his brow furrowed and he shot back, sarcastically, "I don't know, should you?" Kowalski hastily started scribbling and continued for a whole minute until he realised that he was drawing a picture of a moose, a space monster and a racoon having a light saber battle atop the bodies of his decapitated enemies. He clumsily hid the drawing behind his back, but of course Rico had seen it and nicked it right from behind the scientist's back.

"Rico, you hand that back this instance! That is a very important hypothesised scenario of mine that I will need to file so I can use it for future reference!" Kowalski bellowed as he mounted Private's head in order to launch an aerial attack on Rico. The two continued to merrily chase each other around the small bridge, much to the hidden amusement of Skipper and Private, as long as none of them were used as ramps. All the joy however left the small ship when Kowalski sent Rico flying into the pilot's seat with a spin kick. Rico landed in the empty seat, raised the stick in his hand (1), and froze on the spot when Skipper's piercing glare made contact with his own bloodshot eyes.

"Rico," their leader said, his voice as hard as Antarctic ice, but only half as cold, "would you kindly explain to me..." he paused for dramatic effect, or possibly because he was trying to stop himself from hitting the other penguin over the head with that stick that just appeared with no explanation. Then he took a deep breath and yelled, in a voice that made Rico feel half as big as he actually was, "who's been steering the ship while you've been dancing around with your little playmate?" He took a calming breath, as if he were about to allow Rico time enough to defend himself, only to continue, "You get back to your post right now soldier!" Rico immediately sat down, stick at his side. "We could have hit something! And you would have been solely responsible for our demise! You should be ashamed of yourself!" Now, even Rico knew that the risk of collision in space is rather small. There are no telephone poles, moose or other wildlife around, and the risk of hitting another ship is, to put it mildly, minimal. So, not only Rico, but his two other colleagues as well, knew that Skipper might be a bit paranoid and possibly overworked. The fact that he had not slept for more than 24 hours did not improve his mental state. Kowalski soundlessly readied his tranquiliserdarts for use while he cowered behind Private; Just in case he missed and Skipper started looking for a culprit. Skipper, unaware of the imminent mutiny, waddled a few steps closer to Rico, giving him the evil eye every time Rico dared to look anywhere but the emptiness of space stretched out before him in all its majesty. He took a deep breath, presumably to calm himself down. Everyone half expected him to simply let the matter slide for now, but then their leader instead said, now more disappointed than angry, "and where were you even taking us before you decided to steal from our nerd?" Kowalski grumbled when Skipper called him a nerd. He was a scientist, damn it. And he was the sole master of his own self, except for those times when his mind control experiments backfired. But those were mishaps in the name of science. After all, to a scientist the whole world is one big lab and everybody else is a test subject. He decided to write a brilliant essay on the plight of scientists and why the whole galaxy should fear them, but only after his current experiment had ended and when Skipper had had a nap. Or three.

Rico never got round to answering Skipper, the zwiip of a tranquiliser dart cut him off as it planted itself in Skipper's shoulder. The pilot was understandably less than thrilled, his rough sigh communicated that perfectly, and Private sent Kowalski a reprimanding glare as he accusingly crossed his flippers. Kowalski decided to just refrain from defending his actions. Rico still had a stick and his aim was pretty good.

The awkward turtle swam in the waters of silence, but to Skipper it felt more like the world had been smothered in lavender scented tissue paper. (2) As Skipper regained the use of his senses one by one his brain was working overtime, trying to remember what had happened, ascertain what was going on right now, and what he should be doing in a moment when he found out whether he still had a left foot. When he perhaps, quite possibly, remembered that he had perhaps gotten a little exhausted and that he was surrounded by his very well behaved team it came naturally to him to simply decided that he should ask a question which he somehow wanted the answer to right now. Or possibly a few minutes ago. If he had not slept longer. He could not remember that thing you measured long time with, but decided that it would probably return to him shortly. "Where are you taking us, Rico?" He asked out loud. Three heads whipped around to look at their now (mostly) conscious leader. Rico, who had found that the stick was a gentlemanly co-pilot, gave Skipper an uplifting grunt and produced a book from his newly reorganised and improved insides. Private decided to make himself useful and dragged himself out of his sombre almost slumber. He waddled towards Rico, passed Skipper with a nervous glance, and reached up to receive the book from their pilot, only to have it fall on him with a slight bounce. The smallest penguin managed to get himself out from under the book, denied that he was getting too chubby, and realised that it was a book identical to Ford's _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. Skipper appeared to be frighteningly gleeful at the sight of the book. And, expectantly gleeful like a child who had been promised a pizza with a side of grenades, he asked Rico, "did you steal it?" His flippers flapped enthusiastically and he nearly sent the pilot an approving wink, but Rico's response in the shape of a "Neeh" put a damper on him. Private was quite uncomprehending of why that seemed to displease their leader. "Stealing is wrong," he said. The Private might as well have stated that Antarctica is moderately chilly. Kowalski beat Skipper to it and gave him an imaginary smack on the head. "The Penguin Operations Ground Rules state that you must ALWAYS steal while in enemy territory, du-uh," skipper all but groaned matter of factly. Private secretly thought that he sounded like a teenage girl. He kept that to himself. "That doesn't seem nice... I mean, isn't that a bit excessive?" Private tried, but was once again met with slightly disappointed forehead wrinkles all around him. He admitted his defeat, unaware of the fact that Kowalski had just removed a point from his latest aptitude test due to his obvious lack of knowledge of the essential and sacred Penguin Operations Ground Rules. Not that it mattered, since the aptitude test had been scribbled on a piece of paper placed in a folder, in their HQ, in the zoo, New York, Earth. (3) Skipper ignored the Private in favour of making the cocpit feel more competent over all, and asked Rico the question that enevitably came to mind: "Anyhow, so, where'd you get it, and why are you acting like it's the smoked salmon of our dreams?" (4) Skipper asked, getting just a smidgeon tired of questions. Rico launched into an animated explanation with a lot of gesturing and a cup of lemonade involved. As he finished Skipper clapped his flippers together with satisfaction and Private was nearly teary eyed. Kowalski had stopped scribbling, his pencil hanging limply from the corner of his beak where it had been left in thoughtful contemplation and promptly been forgotten. Kowalski was however not too thrilled about having lost his train of thoughts in favour of listening to Rico, and flatly stated, "Well, that just leaves the question: Why are you acting like its the answer to all our prayers," and continued under his breath, "not that any of us actually believe in something as far fetched as a god..." Rico promptly, with the nonchalance of a Victorian gentleman, opened the book, leafed through a few of its interactive pages, and clicked a button. The book's electronic voice flooded the cockpit, in all its asthmatic cricket-like glory: "_Popular vacation destinations near beaches, oceans and imaginary beaches. Coordinates ready for transfer, press magenta button to the left or press urple button below to cancel._" (5) Rico triumphantly pressed the urple button as he explained that he had already completed the transfer and set their course for the first of those destinations listed (since the dolphins clearly would want to relax at a nice beach party after having annihilated Earth). He had put his brain cells to work, done it all on his own initiative, all in the name of finding those blasted Dolphins. (6) And there was much rejoice in the cockpit after that revelation.

The rejoicing might have gotten a little out of hand, as Private decided to hug Rico in order to demonstrate how sincere his words of praise were. As Private burst out, "You really are much more intelligent and independent than we ever give you credit for," Rico responded to the overly adorable hug by hurling. Unfortunately this backfired for him, as he accidentally spit up a _Cuddly Critters_ colouring book form the Zoovenir Shop. Private hugged him again. Kowalski shot him with a tranquiliser dart. It would not do to have their pilot throw up a lit bomb by accident. Private only had time to regret not finishing the hug before he was gone, fast asleep atop the colouring book.

()()()()

Kowalski decided, all by his lonesome, that tranquiliser darts were going to be his new best friends on the endlessly long and potentially maddening roadless space trips. After ensuring that Rico had engaged the auto pilot Skipper even ordered Kowalski to shoot Rico. Just to be on the safe side. The pilot had after all tried to eat his own foot while swearing at the top of his lungs, all out of boredom. Being all alone with the increasingly frustrated, bored and paranoid Skipper proved too much of a challenge for the genius and he turned the darts on himself with a defeated yet hopeful sigh. Skipper spent the next few hours being paranoid all by his lonesome. As one would imagine this did nothing to improve his mood. The much needed yet inadequately appreciated naptime came to a sudden end when the radio flared to life. Private was the first one to wake up when a message blared at him from pretty much all perceivable directions. The former owner of the ship had clearly not wanted to miss anything on the radio and so had put up speakers anywhere they fit. And a few places they did not fit, which resulted in one speaker dropping down onto Rico's head, only to be cut in half by his sushi knife. Apparently the tranquilisers did nothing to blunt Rico's sharp reflexes. Once the blaring and mostly indecipherable message had finished a jingle played. This finally made Kowalski stir, and together with Rico he started pressing various buttons around the cockpit in the hope that one of them would turn down the volume of the radio. Someone must have done something right, for the second time the message started blasting through the speakers it was at a level that allowed the penguins to actually focus on the words. "_Greetings. It has come to our attention that there are large amounts of penguin DNA aboard your ship and that these penguins are most likely still alive. Penguins are classified as extinct in our databanks and if you are found smuggling live members of this species you will be given a medal of special services to wildlife preservation and then executed for your crimes. If you surrender you will be buried with honours. This has been a service announcement from the Society for Preservation of Possibly Palatable or Plain Tasty Poultry and other Wildlife. Have a nice day._" The catchy jingle played again.

()()()()

(1) You are probably thinking: "Hey that stick just appeared out of nowhere, didn't it?" And you would be wrong. You should know by now that the great and not at all cannibalistic people of Nowhere are unknowingly on Kowalski's side.

(2) Unbeknownst to any of the penguins their ship had just passed through a pocket of blank space, where a race of quite frankly amateurish aliens had set up a recharge station. Their ships used to be powered by blank verse poetry, but as soon as they made contact with other sentient races they instantly retreated back to their home planet indefinitely because they could not handle the less than rollicking reviews. A few phrases, symbols and metaphors sometimes still escape the defunct stations, much to the chagrin of most intelligent life forms in the galaxy.

(3) No, that piece of paper had not miraculously survived the destruction of the planet Earth. That would just have been silly.

(4) Not to be confused with the Smoked Salmon of the planet Doubt, a fish said to have gone extinct for unknown reasons.

(5) One might think that there was a mistake in the book's programming. However, urple is a real colour, or as real as magenta, a colour strikingly similar to urple in every way, except urple is banned in a half a dozen star systems. One of the reasons for this ban is that the downfall of the mighty Appolynoiyan Empire came swiftly and with an extreme lack of style at the hands of the Azgoths of Kria during their short obsession with painting their ships in colours expressing the inner turmoil of the ink they use to pen their poetry.

(6) Another ugly side of urple is that it can leave the visible spectrum in order to infect already terrible poetry. Some rumors even go around of urple infecting prose, but those curiously died down after the Earth had been demolished. And there was much rejoice.

**A/N: ****So, I gotta be honest, this chapter wasn't worth the wait. This is just a transition chapter with only a little development of the hidden subplots to redeem itself. But at least we'll soon reach the extremely long finale.** **Soon as in we're more than halfway.**


	13. Chapter 13

**()()()()()()()()()()**

Chapter 12

The Society for Preservation of Possibly Palatable or Plain Tasty Poultry and other Wildlife was certainly not run by bureaucrats. Their takeover of the penguin ship was swift, effective and utterly chaotic. It seemed to baffle all agents that the ship they had managed to transport to a cargo bay was piloted by a group of penguins. Of course, it did not make things easier that the penguins resisted any attempts to save their species. Skipper knocked out a SPPPPTPoW agent while he asked Kowalski, agitated and out of breath, "How come they have samples of our DNA? Aren't we supposed to be extinct or..." He was knocked down by another agent falling on top of him. With an undignified groan he dragged himself out from under the many limbed alien in its ridiculous yellow uniform. Once he had gotten free he marvelled at having escaped the ugly uniform covered almost entirely by the P's of the society's logo. (1) Then he turned to Kowalski, who was trying his hardest to come up with a plan while keeping track of Private and Rico who seemed to have started a rodeo like game perched atop the heads of two screaming agents. "It seems likely –" Kowalski said and paused to trip a clumsy agent and watch with glee as he tore his uniform on the edge of a crate, "that we may have left some DNA behind when we visited Ursa Minor Beta..." Skipper was appalled at this and proceeded to send the other members of his team a glare which could only mean, "Who left behind DNA evidence? Have I taught you NOTHING?!"

As fights go this was a bland one and if it were to choose a colour to best suit its emotions it would be a soft greyish turquoise. Yes, it was just one of those kinds of fights. Once all agents daring to board the ship or, god help them, trying to move the penguins to shipping crates, had been defeated, the only one remaining was the commander. He was a lanky looking yellow alien with a wide mouth and a voice like a plate dropped on a floor made of bubble wrap and he never once considered leaving his post. He valiantly licked both his eyes and addressed the four penguins with the dignity his rank had provoked in him about four minutes prior, "The Society for Preservation of Possibly Palatable or Plain Tasty Poultry and other Wildlife..." Here he paused and allowed the jingle to play. (2) Its catchiness was not wearing off the least, which amazed the penguins. "Are here to help you. If you surrender now you will be taken into custody by our glorious organisation and no additional charges will be raised. You already stand accused of hindering The Society for Preservation of Possibly Palatable or Plain Tasty Poultry and other Wildlife..." again he paused while the jingle played, sweat starting to form on his brow, "in our work; attacking agents of... us... and damaging... our... property; And last but not least it has come to our attention that you have not paid the transportation tax on the ship you arrived here in." Skipper stared at him. He kept starring stiffly. Kowalski immediately knew what was wrong and tipped his commanding officer over, let Private drag him away, and faced their yellow-clad enemy with a poisonous leer and a raised flipper. " ._EVER_. Accuse Skipper of tax evasion again you will be sorry to remain alive for much longer," he stated in a voice that dripped with the urge to strangle anyone dressed in a garish shade of yellow. Skipper, seeking comfort in the flippers of Private, had started to mumble as if he were having flashbacks to a terrible past trauma. Which was exactly the case. Taxes are serious business to some people, including Skipper whose worst childhood memories happen to revolve around taxes. (3) After many stressful hours of doing what Skipper does he had finally snapped and was now reliving those horrid memories.

A certain blob-eyed and very yellow alien commander had a strange notion that things would not turn out well for him. The commander's eyes twitched in thought. He had a feeling that not only would this encounter with four penguins not be the highlight of his career, but also one of those occasions where his yellow uniform might lose a few P's. The sudden penguin-shaped attack to his nether regions proved that he was right. The following beating lead by an out of control and absolutely enraged penguin somehow made him content in the knowledge that at least he had been perceived as a threat. Even the gargled screams and beak shaped tears in his uniform did not bring him down. The clearly crazy penguin was a worry, but really, what could such a small animal really do once it had gotten rid of all its anger? The answer was revealed when Skipper, with a triumphant smirk not unlike that of an emu with the stolen teeth of an Australian soldier clasped in its beak, sweetly asked him, "Do you know how to spell 'world's deadliest assailant' with 7 letters?" The commander shook his head slowly as he got up and glanced at the nearest exit where a group of heavily armed special agents had positioned themselves, ready to get involved. "Penguin," Skipper answered as he dramatically turned from the commander to the new group of opponents. (4)

()()()()

The majesty of the following battle, the expertise which Private and Rico implemented in their joint attack, the bravery of Skipper as he launched himself into the barrel of a nasty looking yellow blaster and the shifty deviousness implemented by Kowalski as he came up with his plan for an escape routed and a purely defensive mine field while doing readings on his own taste buds in response to his Moose Gone Wild withdrawal, is too great for an ordinary spectator to comprehend. Luckily there was a less than ordinary spectator present, and he was fully capable of looking and howling at the display without comprehending much. This spectator was the occupant of a shipping crate made of pure Phlenotium, a substance known for appearing to be strong enough to hold back a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, but actually failing to live up to that expectation. The snorting and howling beast in a crate not so long away from the battle of not the century, but certainly the week, was of course a Ravenous (as well as thirsty) Bugblatter Beast, newly collected from Traal.(5)

The beast watched in awe, grunting as an agent feel to the floor with a cry and remained unmovable. Of course this was followed by awkward silence, as at this point in time the battle had not yet started. The unfortunate agent had, unbeknownst to anyone but himself, suddenly remembered that embarrassing thing he did years ago and the shame had made his embarrassment glands shut down from over work, which made him freeze in place. The awkward silence intensified. Finally the special agents opted to drag their colleague away by the ankles, losing a few P's along the way. They put him right next to the Bugblatter Beast, who after this little intermission was no longer so ravenous but instead full of P's. Once all parties had reassumed their initial positions Kowalski deftly threw his spare options board at the fleeing commander as a distraction. It only took the penguins a moment to agree on Kowalski's plan, protest as said penguin wanted to measure their blood pressure and for Rico to realise that he was all out of mines. In a moment of ingenuity Rico instead spit up his LEGO collection. (6) Skipper used his very own inbuilt penguin blubber, originally meant as strategic protection against inhospitable environments, to safely navigate the LEGO-field and lure the unsuspecting special agents into this world of plastic pain. Even though one of the special agents called Skipper "a fat little sneaky –" (Private and Rico both attacked his face right then, Private by throwing LEGOs at the special agent's eyes and Rico by jamming Private into his mouth) Skipper never lost any appreciation of his strategic blubber, one of the greatest defensives known to penguins.

While Skipper was working on "defensive" Kowalski worked on the offensive and ruthlessly tipped special agents over with his reclaimed spare options board. Private and Rico worked in perfect tandem to ensure that their opponents actually tipped and not just tripped. Their plan was complicated and brilliant, but the effect was not as impressive as expected. Therefore they resorted to coordinating their attacks so the special agents knocked their heads together as they fell. This tactic had only worked for a short while until the special agents had been joined in the fight by senior special agents who were issued greenish grey and yellow helmets. However, the rest of the battle was glorious, for all of the four minutes it lasted. By the time when Kowalski's tranquilisers had been implemented the frustrated special agents and senior special agents decided to follow the penguin genius' lead and had a whole other group of agents bring them tranquilisers. That group of agents was not fancy enough to have a proper name, but they called themselves the Terror-Squad. Mostly because their leader once put a stolen T on his uniform and then had to cover up the theft by writing "error" next to it. The squad questioned his logic, but at least he hadn't done anything truly stupid, like prick his finger on a tranquiliser dart. Until today, that is.

The unconscious Terror Squad leader was heavy. His fall was precise. The defeat was sudden and terrifying. The shipping crates were yellow. And theirs just so happened to be next to (or rather, a whole bit too close to) the crate barely containing the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. The cargo bay was quickly deserted by all agents of any kind, even the commander, who limped away in the hope of escaping to a place where pain was absent and food was edible. Which meant anywhere but on a SPPPPTPoW ship. When he made his way past he crate with a barely contained Ravenous Bugblatter Beast he found that his wishes were granted, albeit not at the same time as there was quite a bit of pain involved with being edible. In case anyone were wondering, no, this cargo bay was not an appropriate place to store a (no longer the least bit ravenous) Bugblatter Beast of Traal. (7) But what would you expect from the SPPPPTPoW?

In a neighbouring crate Rico watched in dazed fascination as the beast burped and sent him a cheeky smile before burping again and spitting out a few P's. Private sighed, sliding down the side of his crate, and felt a pang of sadness as he realise how much this reminded him of the time they were shipped away from the zoo. "I miss all my friends from the Zoo. From Earth," he said, barely conscious. Rico nodded in understanding and leaned towards Private's crate while looking at him through the ventilation holes. "I know," he said, in his very own way. Somewhere, out in space and beyond several solar systems, Arthur dent started to feel a bit guilty.

()()()()

(1) As work uniforms go the agents of SPPPPTPoW had not won the jackpot. On the other hand the uniforms were cheap and the postal workers who had to deliver them never lost any on the way, which is remarkable since the only route to the SPPPPTPoW's Head Quarters goes right past a black hole. The only problem with the uniforms was that the designer tended to focus on only one letter at a time in order to make his Mashmillan meditation more balanced, and so most agents were stuck with P's. Some, mostly senior staff, were given uniforms with a single S beneath the left armpit. Others again, a select few, were given uniforms with up to eighty T's on them, but the tale of those agents is an adventure so thrilling and full of wonder that it better be left for another day.

(2) Not a day goes by without the members of SPPPPTPoW regretting that they chose to fiddle with copyright and accidentally causing the jingle which they had ordered for a single promotional spot on the Sub-Etha network to become the permanent companion to their society's name. Not playing the jingle after the name is spoken out loud is actually an offence. Many tears have been shed to the sound of "SPPPPTPoW" and the following catchy jingle.

(3) There's a lot of talk of taxes in this story. Apparently half the universe is tax-deductible. And considering that this story is about four penguins who do not pay taxes that is quite curious.

(4) Many things can be said about the SPPPPTPoW, and all of those things have to do with their lack of success concerning pretty much everything.

(5) The reason for this Beast's presence was that the incredibly stupid Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts have gone out of fashion, and so the population experienced a rather severe lack of food when no more stupid tourists wandered into their habitats in order to take a few snapshots. In desperation, and out of species wide stupidity, the beasts decided to simply eat each other, which was exceedingly uncomplicated as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts prefer to ask for the names of their victims and carve them into memorials outside their homes. Since the beasts already knew each others' names it seemed like an easy solution to eat each other, but all this cannibalism unfortunately lead to the near extinction of the species, and thus their future became a concern for the SPPPTPW.

(6) LEGO is, as all Earth parents are aware, the most painful substance for your feet to come into contact with when you are trying to navigate through your child's darkened room. It is also quite painful for other people to step on under any other circumstances, but the pain felt by parents is generally 0,89% worse since proximity to children makes pain receptors more playful than ordinary.

(7) The reason to why this particular individual has been put in the cargo bay is quite simple. Since all other attempts to capture Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts had all ended in failure, as well as the deaths of 38 SPPPTPW agents, it was decided that this one member of the species, which had been successfully capture because it was twice as stupid as all the other remaining members of its species, would provide Bugblatter enough to preserve the species. Cryogenically frozen. In an iceberg. On a planet as far from the SPPPTPW main office as possible.

**A/N: Please R&R and thanks to the people who've favourited since last chapter came out. **

**And dear Dreamworks, why do you keep making my ideas for this fanfic canon? I've lost 12 plot points already. And this story is no longer in canon with anything, so there.**


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 13

Morale amongst the two barely conscious penguins was unnervingly low. Worry started to gnaw at them after wondering why they had only been unconscious for no more than a minute while their two comrades were still soundly asleep. (1) Being unable to find comfort in Skipper's encouraging pep-talks or to escape the whole mess with one of Kowalski's wacky plans gave Rico an unnerving feeling. Private just felt sad. These shipping crates reminded him of the shipping crates used at the zoo. And thinking about the zoo made him think of a lot of other things that had also been blown to smithereens. He tried to distract himself by watching Rico through the surprisingly large and numerous ventilation holes. It appeared as if Rico had tried to bring down one wall of the crate by use of his head alone and now was on the verge of losing his patience. When Rico's patience left him a stick of dynamite often took its place. Private could hear the boom of some kind of explosives almost as soon as he could smell Rico's singed feathers. His comrade hissed enraged at the wall, only to be joined by the hiss of the Bugblatter Beast from the next crate. The beast tore another bite out of an already devastated wall of its crate, as if to show Rico that their common enemy could not win every battle. Rico clapped his flippers in appreciation. Then he lowered them, slowly, as an idea started to form in his head. He started cooing at the beast as if it were a kitten, luring it closer to the chewed up wall and then, with a final resounding CHOMP! It went through the wall and came waddling towards Rico's crate with rumbling stomps. Private watched in silence. He did not know if he should be in awe or hide like a scared butterfly in a hailstorm. He pressed his face to a ventilation hole in breathless anticipation as the beast came to a stop at Rico's crate. Then the private pulled himself together and hissed, due to lack of air as he had forgotten to breathe, quietly at Rico, "Try having a nice chat with it." Rico kind of liked that idea for some reason. He could tell that here were all the components of a beautiful friendship laid out and just waiting for the moment when both of them were on the same page. The page that read "destroy all shipping crates and other yellow things. Together". Rico smiled at the beast. It smiled back.

()()()()

It turned out that not only was the Bugblatter Beast more than willing to demolish part of Rico's shipping crate, it also enjoyed his lemonade. Sure, Rico was running out of cups, but the lemonade dispenser still worked and his new friend was not interested in eating him as long as it had lemonade. Rico saw that as a win. Private at first was a bit miffed by the whole thing, especially when the beast started munching on a corner of his crate – at Rico's orders, of course. Private had to admit that he was exceptionally impressed with his friend... and, to some degree, his friend's friend. Although he was still weary of the latter. The beast found that it strongly disliked Private's crate for some reason and started roaring as it attacked all its corners over and over. (2) The roars seemed to be what finally provoked Kowalski and Skipper to stir awake. Skipper sat up with one swift movement and exclaimed, "Dancing maracas what's that jet plane doing in my head?" From another crate a slurred string of gibberish could be heard. Kowalski dragged himself around the crate for a bit, a string of saliva following him. He had a feeling that his current position was ironic somehow, but could not put his flipper on it. He yawned passionately and then jumped right into the top of his crate, startled when his yawn was answered by the thundering roar of the Bugblatter Beast. The knock to the head convinced him that going to sleep once more was the best option right now. And so he did.

A few meters away Skipper was on the other hand wide awake, sleeping was not an option when a peckish Bugblatter Beast of Traal with one of your subordinates riding its back was chewing and tearing its way through the wall of your shipping crate. The shipping crate that was meant to act as an, admittedly flimsy, barrier between him and the beast. The brave penguin commander felt just the tiniest bit uneasy. Or perhaps incredibly terrified. He was too preoccupied with avoiding the beast's chomping jaws to care about such irrelevant things as fear. When the beast finally pulled its head out of the crate Skipper let out an undignified "uhh!?" and slumped down in a corner of his crate. He started to think that he had had enough excitement today to last for quite some time to come. It was an alien thought which did not belong in his head. "Hello Skipper, Rico's made a new friend!" Private brightly chirped. Skipper let out another "Uhh", this time a defeated, flat one. The kind that would not be eligible for a raise after five years of loyal service. That kind of "uhh". He was not proud of it.

Skipper strenuously crawled out of the ravaged crate, assessing the situation and making sure that the beast was not looking at him. It was busy reducing Kowalski's crate to dust. The Penguin commander cringed.

Now that all four penguins and Rico's new (very violently "playful") friend were freed, the question of how to escape from the SPPPTPW remained to be answered. Kowalski was still groggy, so plans were not in ready supply. Rico and Private insisted that they bring Rico's friend, while Skipper adamantly refused, on the grounds that the beast had tried to bite him 18 times since he left his crate_ and _had spilled lemonade on Kowalski's one and only plan. Albeit it was not a good plan, it was a plan, and they needed one. Private tried defending the beast by pointing out that it had only nearly stepped on him and Rico 5 times each and it always smiled back when you smiled at it. Rico insisted on bringing the beast with them but was firmly shot down by an agitated Skipper who had had enough. The topic was laid to rest as Skipper annoyed stated, "no, not even if it fits!"

Private could tell that Skipper's decision was final, with the bloodshot eye and all the other signs of stress and beginning madness cueing him in, and tried to comfort Rico by pointing out that they probably needed to make a hasty escape and you could not do that on a full stomach. It actually helped a little. Meanwhile, the beast was gnawing on the tire of a movable platform, oblivious to the fact that its fate had just been decided behind its back. It decided that it liked the taste of red tires and furthermore that tasting one of those black and white moving things making noise behind its back was still the immediate plan of action. After that it was going to visit the nearest planet, where there would most likely be more red tires, it hoped. (3) Then the beast felt Rico's flipper tug at it gently and stopped eating the tire all together. "I wanna bring it!" Rico said, or rather, he said something that sounded more like him barfing but still communicated the same message. Private hesitantly joined him and started negotiating with the beast. The youngest penguin hopefully exclaimed that they could at least give the beast a chance to choose for itself. "Nu-uh," Skipper answered, flippers crossed. Kowalski agreed, although he only managed to nod as he was still leaning heavily on a still standing wall from an otherwise demolished crate. The tranquilisers made his mouth taste like he had eaten a spoonful of gelatinous (unsalted) saltwater. Those tranquilisers were nothing like his own carefully crafted ones made with unstable chemicals and plastic cups fished out of the trashcan at the zoo toilets. There was_ love_ poured into the making of _those_ things. His mouth suddenly stopped tasting of anything all together as he glanced to his left and saw the Bugblatter Beast gulp down Rico and Private in one mouthful.

()()()()

Silence fell as a light dusting of sugar. Skipper stared. Kowalski glared. The beast burped. And then exploded in a splatter of colorful yet unappetizing entrails. From the mess of colours emerged Rico, screaming like a lunatic and laughing like an evil genius. Private emerged from a glob of red which had been flung to the side. He was displeased and direly in need of a towel. As he was towel-less had had to settle for

Trying to calm down the raging lunatic who had journeyed through the innards of the Bugblatter Beast with him. Apparently, being swallowed did not suit Rico the least. (4) It took all his fellow penguins to calm him down again. Skipper could have sworn that Rico had been out of dynamite, but even professionals can be proven wrong. Right now it was obvious that Rico had no more explosives on him, period. Or else he would probably have blown the whole ship to smithereens. In lack of explosives he opted to use his toes. Kowalski noted in the personnel files that being eaten really did a number on him. And that their resident maniac was possibly turning into a B-movie villain.

When Rico had finally stopped kicking anything in sight the team of penguins suddenly realised that an explosion is not exactly inconspicuous. The sound of doors being opened and dozens of agents rushing through them also gave them a clue. However, as Kowalski noted, another sound could be heard. A most wonderful sound, like something out of a dream. He turned around to see the source of the sound.

"Come with me if you want to live," said the figure behind him. He gaped. Tranquilisers or no tranquilisers, he could have sworn that Doris the Dolphin was standing right behind him, smiling that special smile reserved just for life threatening situation. "Doris!" Private exclaimed with cheer. Kowalski furrowed his brow. If Private could see Doris then she was not a hallucination. And _that_ meant that she was actually here. His mind, foggy as it was, came to this conclusion and instead decided that denial was preferable. Hallucinations cannot break your heart so thoroughly, after all. "I must be dying then. My life is passing before my eyes. 'M glad it started with one of the good parts..." he slurred on, pretty much ignoring the fact that Skipper and Rico had picked him up and started carrying him over their heads as they all followed Doris down a hatch. Doris managed to navigate them downwards, keeping herself afloat with a fancy looking cerulean anti-grav belt and clearing the way with a mean looking saffron laser blaster. Kowalski could not have been happier, finally spending time with his long lost love. He babbled incoherently, unaware that they had reached Doris' ship, concealed in what looked like a disused docking bay and cutlery storage room kept in nuances of almost-but-not-quite-pleasant lilac. She hurriedly got all four penguins aboard and started up the ship with a finesse that appeared completely alien to the penguins. Unlike them she seemed to have some idea of what she was actually doing. With a wave of swift yet precise movements she had the ship up and running, out of the storage room, and on its merry way out of the grasp of SPPPTPW almost before the four penguins could disarm and restrain her. As the ship blasted off at a speed nearing the speed of light, four penguins could be heard cheering, while one bemoaned the fact that he had no towel to wipe away the remaining bits of Bugblatter caught in his feathers. He still took part in the cheering, though.

()()()()

(1) We of course all know why, but to say that SPPPTPW is incompetent would be redundant.

(2) No, there is no reason. The beast is just stupid.

(3) Unfortunately for the peckish beast the nearest planet was planet Frombron, where you had to sign up for a monthly payment service in order to deserve the privilege of gravity. You even have to pay _double_ on holidays; which meant that tires, wheels and other such means of transportation were not popular. It is only available to people who pay their taxes and have a clean record, otherwise you have to submit a special request and wait for between two days to 7 weeks. Tourists can however submit a tourist request for gravity to be provided for a special daily payment. Since the beast only knew tourists as that dish served between tree roots and green goo the future did not look bright for it. Furthermore, counterfeit gravity is a big problem in the outer regions of the galaxy. Bootleggers tend to also double as heads of states so arrests are rare and always the object of much media attention, something which the bootleggers tend to get violently annoyed with (Violently as in starting wars). But then again none of this concerns this particular Bugblatter Beast, to the great chagrin of those who were expecting a fabulous adventure to unfold from this humble footnote. This footnote has been made to apologise for not living up to expectations.

(4) Irony. Irony... what can you say about irony? A great deal more than what's been mentioned here, that's for sure.

( It would appear that this footnote is a tad jealous of the size of the previous footnote. Please ignore this disturbance and carry on as usual.)

**A/N: Sorry about the long wait. I had to rewrite this chapter so many times. On the bright side it was too long once I was satisfied and I had to cut the end of it off, so now the next chapter is already partially done.**


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 14

**A/N: To avoid confusion: Since this has become a complete Penguins of Madagascar AU the events of the episode "The Penguin Who Loved Me" did not happen, but Doris' character is based on her appearance in that episode.**

"We got you now!" Skipper cackled, sounding more maniacal than what was comfortable for his colleagues. Private patted his shoulder carefully, trying to be soothing. Doris seemed unimpressed.

"I'm on your side!" she yelled in frustration. Skipper refused to listen to her. Kowalski wanted to listen to her, but as he had just been running around in panicked circles, followed by Rico knocking some sense into him, he was currently lying whimpering on the floor while trying to run sideways with the use of only one leg. Doris was too busy being outraged to worry about him. "I'm trying to help you, damn it!" she screeched.

"Sure you are," Skipper drawled, "and you've not _at all_ been sent by Blowhole because he couldn't put his big boy pants on and be patient enough for us to put our brilliant minds together and storm his new secret lair?" Doris looked at him. It was amazing how much that look could communicate, but it was all wasted on Skipper. Kowalski, on the other hand, was picking himself up off of the floor and had decided to finally man up and deal with the situation. For the first time in several minutes he actually accessed the situation, found that it made no sense, and promptly started yelling at Skipper.

"How can you even think that Doris would join our enemy," and so on he went. Skipper barked back, and so they went on, only for Private to put himself between them. They may have been discussing a very serious matter, but that was no reason to completely ruin the mood of everyone. So Private decided that calming down was the best way to actually resolve the issue. It was a technique rarely utilised by the penguins. Mostly because there was no violence or patriotism involved.

"Now, now, let's hear what Doris has to say before we make any decisions and throw about accusations, right? That's what all this is about, so let's just start with the facts so we can treat each other as the friends we know deep down that we are." He sent a glare in Skipper's direction, communicating beyond a doubt that Skipper was being a bit of a meanie and that he was not OK with it. Doris sighed with relief.

"Thank you." She shuffled a little in the emergency rubber bindings that Rico had used to stick her to the floor. Another sigh. "I have no idea why you let things get so out of hand, it's like you're a completely different species." Nobody commented. Private cleared his throat and Kowalski startled, trying to say something, but the words got stuck in his mouth, trapped by a cork of sappiness. Doris stared at them all awkwardly. "Alrighty, then..." she mumbled, glancing suspiciously at the four penguins.

"I've been keeping an eye on you for a while." She stated.

"Then why haven't you helped us sooner?!" Skipper flung out accusingly and with annoyance painted on his face in several thick, gritty layers.

"I _have_. It was me who lead you into that archive on Ursa Minor Beta when you couldn't get there yourself."

"And how come you couldn't just have _told _us how to get in there?" Private asked.

"I just didn't wanna come clean, you know," she gesticulated towards Kowalski. Kowalski shuffled uncomfortably.

"What'd you mean by that?" he asked, innocently, his voice a bit thick and eyes slightly blank. It seemed like his body was less oblivious than his mind, which made Skipper slightly anxious. The scientist seemed to be the only animal present who had no idea that Doris was not as interested in him as he was in her. In fact his denial was still so thick that it could be bottled and sold as accessories at dull parties. (1)

"That's not a good enough reason in my book," Skipper shot at Doris, waving a demanding flipper in her face.

"Well, _I_ didn't take this job to get my emotions hurt, _okay_?" She prudishly shot back while sticking her snout in the air with a strong hint of annoyance, "I took it for... reasons." She awkwardly fell silent. The humming of her now useless anti-grav belt only made her silence more awkward. Luckily for her the awkwardness only lingered for a moment, as Rico asked the obvious question. The question that should have been answered first of all. The question of who she was working for.

"I already told you. I'm on your side! I'm working for The Aquatic Birds Armed Forces," Doris replied with an annoyed jerk of her partially restrained head.

"Oh... ABARF!" Rico added with a satisfied nod. He had reason to feel satisfied with himself. He had just spoken the only completely correctly pronounced and utterly comprehensible sentence uttered by him since last Christmas and the adventurous incident with the scrabble set, radioactive leakage and the expired eggnog.

"That's right!" Doris continued, "I was recruited by Quentin to be an undercover agent in the dolphin community." All four penguins gasped.

"_Quentin_, as in Quentin the Cuttlefish, the greatest spy to grace the seven seas?!" Skipper gasped, awestruck. Then Skipper wilfully shook off the shock in an attempt to appear competent and on top of the situation. He had to be leader-like when Quentin was part of the conversation. He owed it to that brilliant invertebrate. "Ah, good old Quentin. I can't believe I haven't been waiting for him to report ever since we left Earth. Of course he survived the destruction of _our whole planet_, I mean, how could he not? That agent's the eighth wonder of the world... ehm" Skipper cut himself off. Doris graciously took control of the conversation, which was undoubtedly for the best, as Private was beginning to look a little misty eyed at the thought of his lost home.

"I'm Quentin's liaison, officially, but right now I was supposed to aid you in your search for the dolphin conspirators, while still remaining undercover among them. I'm really running a big risk here, cutting off communication with the dolphins for so long," she said. "I sure hope you appreciate me going against Quentin's orders just to save you from the SPPPTPW, I really don't like going against his orders." She blushed faintly. Kowalski stared. He completely forgot to breathe and had to be violently aided by Private and Rico (as well as Rico's emergency pump) in order to regain his ability to breathe as well as think.

"You're _DATING _him!" were the first words out of his mouth. Skipper thought it was a waste of breath but kept it to himself. Doris huffed.

"So what if I am?" Kowalski promptly snapped his pen in two. This earned him a berating by Rico, who only had room for one spare pen, and that spare pen was currently holding up the roof of the emergency archive. To remove it would most likely give him gas and lead to the archive turning into a disorganised mess. Skipper tuned out Rico and got started on freeing Doris, with the help of an eager and apologetic Private. Once Doris was freed she quickly opened a small compartment below the control panel and withdrew a shining new pen from it. She handed it to a dumbfounded Rico, who just stared at it for a moment before he realised that it was time to stop his verbal attack on Kowalski.

"Thank you Doris, that was very kind of you," Private said cheerfully, glad that the yelling had died down and people were getting along for once. Doris leaned down towards him.

"Aww, thank you Private, you're just the sweetest –" Doris never got to finish at Kowalski let out a defeated howl.

"You're doing it again!" he flung accusingly at her, "You're trying to make me _jealous_!" Kowalski gesticulated angrily as he circled the exasperated Doris. "How could you do that to me?! You said you didn't want to date me because being an agent for ABARF is too risky, and then you jump into the tentacles of one the moment I leave the planet?" Kowalski lamented, accompanied by melodramatic flipper movements.

Skipper sent a quick sideways glance in Doris' direction. "He's right. That is kind of cruel... I mean, not that I'm at all interested in any type of romance while on a mission, but that does seem just a bit cruel to me,"

he stated flatly, as if he was talking about some technicality of a step in one of Kowalski's plans.

Doris sighed. Her face was turning faintly red, but not from blushing. "So," she said while rolling her eyes, "you think that I betrayed my whole species, became an undercover agent, put my own life on the line and travelled halfway across this sector of the galaxy, _all to make Kowalski jealous_?" Nobody answered. Private nervously shifted from one foot to the other. Rico was not convinced. After all he had a sixth sense for cruelty. When it became clear that Kowalski was frozen in place and was not going to respond Skipper, as the leader he was, took control of the situation.

"I'm sure that Doris is right. Of course she isn't trying to make you jealous," Skipper told Kowalski, ungently padding his shoulder. "Well, Quintin IS the greatest guy on planet Earth... ehm, the galaxy... probably... Who wouldn't fall for him?" Skipper said. Doris rolled her eyes again.

"Can we please talk about what is _actually_ important? I promised Quintin that I'd not leave the other dolphins for long. So I need to know how far along you've gotten with your plan to attack Dr Blowhole so I can prepare for your attack. He'd be shattered if I somehow got confused for an enemy dolphin and got hurt," Doris said. What she said was indeed important, but before Kowalski could start agonising over Doris' constant focus on her boyfriend it dawned on all four penguins that they actually _did not_ have a plan. Kowalski begrudgingly had to admit that he was probably to blame. This was definitely the worst day of his life. So far... He cringed.

()()()()

"Weeee... don't really have one..." Kowalski admitted. Doris stared at him. Kowalski had a feeling that if Doris' flippers had been able to reach her face she would have shown him exactly how frustrating that answer was.

"Haven't you followed the instructions I left... _never mind_, how have you been able to manage so far. You must have had _something_ planned if you've managed to get this far?" Doris asked. She appeared less charming when she was fighting not to grit her teeth in frustration. Rico readily started to explain it to her, but Skipper quickly took over when it became clear that Doris only understood about half of what he said. Skipper readily and precisely explained about their plan to search vacation planets. If Doris could possibly look more disapproving of them, she was clearly pushing the boundaries now.

"Why'd you assume that a whole species collectively decides to lie on a beach and do nothing all day instead of doing something productive. That's kind of racist –" She started. Skipper effortlessly cut her off, "Well, I know how dolphins think, believe me, they're at a sunny beach somewhere."

Doris stared at him with a slight frown hidden behind plain insult. She said nothing. Kowalski felt like his lungs were being crushed by her silence. He had to look away from her to keep from fainting.

An uncomfortable silence passed, one of many since Doris invited them onboard her ship and certainly not the last, and slowly all five animals onboard realised that they still had no plan. Skipper had taken the only seat the tiny ship had to offer, and while he sat in the surprisingly comfortable chair he came to the decision that he was bored and they better start working on a plan while ignoring Doris' critique. (2) Ignoring her critique was certainly the most important part, or he might very well end up eating this surprisingly comfortable chair.

"We need a plan," he announced, swivelling in what was now _his_ chair. Doris apparently realised that her critique was ineffective, or she simply decided that she did not want to waste more time on it. Regardless of her reasoning the result was that she simply sent Skipper an irritated sideways glance and stated, "We've got no time to waste. Right now we're heading to the Dolphin Alliance's secret beach resort; we'll be there in a matter of hours." To his credit Skipper refrained from doing the _I-told-you-so_-dance and instead smiled condescendingly at Doris. She pretended not to notice and instead started to go over some basic information about the dolphins and, in particular, Dr Blowhole. It seemed like he was their undisputed leader, the mastermind behind just about everything. He was also a bit of a diva and had already excommunicated 200 dolphins for various reasons including inadequate personal hygiene and taking the best spot on the beach. Rico of course wanted a head on approach accompanied by a few tons of explosives. Skipper was inclined to agree with him. Of course Doris, and therefore also Kowalski, protested. Private managed to make everyone agree on having a spot of tea, and was promptly put in charge of tea-making. Five people were just too many for plan-making.

Private's complaints were cut short by the ship's communication system flaring to life and reporting that a big crab-shaped ship coming up behind them was trying to make contact. Doris gave the other ship one short look before she powered up all engines and catapulted the ship ahead at a quite frankly reckless speed. "You better come up with a plan quickly!" She yelled behind her. Skipper had been dethroned from his chair as he was in the way and from his spot slumped on the floor he could not see exactly what Doris was doing, only hear the urgency in her voice. He got up in one swift movement, striking a defensive pose, "are we under direct attack?" he asked. Doris grumbled in frustration. "No," she said as she opened a channel to the other ship and answered their hail, "We're simply being offered a free consultation with some travelling fortune-tellers." As a high pitched alien voice broke through the static her face was contorted into an unbecoming grimace. "Some very rude and annoying fortune-tellers," Doris and the alien voice said in unison. "But staggeringly precise," the alien added with an underlying smugness. Skipper gave his team a smile filled with innocent wonder. There should be no need to mention that the other penguins very rarely witnessed such a smile on their rugged leader's face. "What are we waiting for? Let's go aboard and learn all about what Blowhole has in store for us!" he proclaimed, anticipation gleaming in his eyes.

()()()()

In spite of Doris' protests they made their way aboard the ship, an interestingly and intensely bedbug shaped rather than crab shaped construction made of highly reflective green stuff, and met the aliens, which Doris called The Widdawabble.(3) The aliens did not call themselves that, it was simply what they _did_. As alien races go they were probably the least likely to do a lot of things, except win prizes for being peculiar. There is no nice way to put it other than reveal that they looked like mixes between cyan flamencos and lavender jellyfish. Not the **same** mix of flamenco and jellyfish, mind you, but a different one for each member of the species. (4) In addition to looking more than just peculiar they all at first appeared to be blobbing and gooing, but the trained eye could spot that there was a distinct wabble mixed with the blobing; a wabble so uncontrollable that it could be confused with a wobble. None the less, all of this made for a no less disgusting display. Doris adamantly insisted that the Widdawabble were more annoying in their behaviour than they were peculiar in their looks. Private thought that was a bit mean to say. His opinion was promptly ignored by the other penguins. The Private had a feeling that he might be demoted if he tried to voice his opinion again, based purely on the fact that Kowalski wordlessly took a spit-sample from him and labelled it with a scribble that looked like "_Unpopular opinion gland sample no. 1_". He was not entirely wrong.

()()()()

The chief fortune teller looked disturbingly similar to a flamenco barfing up a jellyfish, complete with a smell that almost matched. She had a permanent smug smile plastered on her face and did her best to ignore Doris as the eight Widdawabble onboard the ship greeted the penguins. It was clear that they had met Doris before and had mixed feelings about meeting her again. Going by Doris' frown the feeling was mutual.

"So, you wish to know what your enemy is planning..." The chief fortune teller, whose name nobody was interested in asking for and she was unwilling to give, stated. She did not seem to be big on questions, more on answers, it would seem. Skipper hardly got around to answering in the affirmative before she continued, "which is lucky, for I deal with the near future, and sometimes even the not so near future."

"Great, so what has –" Skipper started, but was cut off by another fortune teller.

"Blowhole got in store for you?"

Private was just about to ask if cutting off people was really necessary, but of course a fortune teller beat him to it. "Is it really polite to cut people off when they just want to ask their question? Yes, it is. We are professionals." Kowalski made a note to himself, _never trust professionals._ He was sure it would come in handy later.

Doris had, judging by her expression and huffing, had enough. Some of the penguins were starting to see why. "Come on guys, we should leave. They're all useless, better not waste any more time on them," Doris announced in a shrill, overbearing voice. The penguins thought that a little harsh – _unhelpful_, sure, but surely not useless?

And the Widdawabble did protest to Doris' accusation. They took up formation, cleared their throats, spread their wings and tentacles. All in preparation for defending their profession and proclaiming it an artistic art of their culture through what was surely meant to be a spectacular song and dance routine... Which was thankfully never performed thanks to Rico's strategic deployment of a stink grenade which he had barfed up for the occasion. And that was the end of that. The Widdawabble obviously did not tolerate others' stink as well as their own.

"Fine," the chief fortune teller grumpily spat out, "To know the threat you must know yourself..." Doris rolled her eyes, and most of the penguins were ready to follow suit. "We're leaving," Doris said. She sent the Widdawabble a threatening glare and a subtle wave of an, until now, concealed blaster. (5) Nobody protested. Rico and Private shot a hasty "goodbye" at the Widdawabble before retreating, and were answered with a choir of "Goodbye" and a single "And a little to the left." Doris ushered everybody onboard her ship before the penguins could ponder that puzzling statement. Kowalski was sure that it was meant as another fortune. Private had however noticed that a little to the left of his tail a single solitary P had been stuck for quite a while. He ripped it off with an annoyed swipe and thought to himself that all those Ps really made him feel like eating something with peanuts. He already knew that the chances of that were slim, which only served to make him slightly more annoyed.

()()()()

Unbeknownst to anyone aboard Doris' ship the Widdawabble were not as put down by their refusal as one would expect. In fact they were all smiles. The chief fortune teller cackled in anticipation. When another fortune teller asked her if they could be _completely _sure that things would turn out to their advantage he was instantaneously and mercilessly struck by a tentacle that looked too much like vomit for him to ignore the humiliation. The chief fortune teller was aware of that and smirked. A sight that could make even the air she breathed quite uncomfortable.

()()()()

Not far from the reflective green ship the laws of probability were being disregarded scandalously as, at a probability of 16435008:4½, a certain ship appeared out of thin air. Doris' frustrated whine and complaints about endless distractions and failing her wondrous boyfriend could be heard as far away as the Almighty Anteater's spare fridge.

()()()()

(1) Denial is a force to be reckoned with. Not only is it a great accessory, but some species even worship it. Some communities practice it privately, while others again sacrifice blue rabbits and then eat them at great planet wide feasts, all because no one will admit that green rabbits taste better but are harder to catch. "It is a cruel world we live in," the king of blue rabbits once said. The king of green rabbits ignored him.

(2) Although boredom is not an unknown concept to most sentient species it may come as a surprise to most that the universe has yet to comprehend that it is laughably boring. Whether the accompanying irony is also lost to the universe is one of the great mysteries of life.

(3) Green stuff used to be all the rave a few centuries ago and the Widdawabble have foreseen that it will be making a comeback any minute now, or so they have insisted for all of 15 years; 15 years of being dangerously unfashionable. However, as the Grogon of the Grand Nuppin Order once said during a legendarily scandalous nail clipping party: we must remember that pity is wasted on the oblivious.

(4) This makes buying shoes a living hell, but is a great help in the Widdawabbles' social lives since no one accidentally confuses twins with each other and start kissing the wrong one at parties, leading to awkward text messages and no more party invitations.

(5) Not that it worked. The Widdawabble are actually completely fearless (which only adds to their unbearable smugness) because their only natural predator is gravity. The unmatched avian icon Valiant the Bald Eagle's only natural predator was also gravity. After he had a wing ripped off by a helicopter.

**A/N: ****Sorry about taking so long, at least this chapter is pretty long, but it doesn't make up for the wait, sadly. But on the bright side next chapter is where the final showdown begins. The long and complicated final showdown. **


End file.
